
Gass £A-^ 1 
Book =ri x~ 







/■sr , 



4 .X /*3'''^-."Ji,r.>, 




GENERAL JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 
■^' AGE 83 VEAKS. 



/ 



,/ 



\ 









\ 



A MEMOIR 



OF THE 



LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICE 



OF 



Joseph E. Johnston, 



Once The Quartermaster General of the Army of the 
United States, 

AND 

A General in the Army of the Confederate 
States of America. 



"Within the bounds of Annandale, 
The gentle Johnstones ride; 
They have been there a thousand years, 
A thousand more they'll bide." 



EDITED BY 

BRADLEY T. JOHNSON, 

Formerly a Soldier in thk Army of Northern Virginia. 



ILIvUSTRATKD. 



BALTIMORE : 

R. H. WOODWARD & COMPANY. 
1891. 



'=r/U. 



^i-nii^ 



D.Ta. 



COPYRIGHTED, 189I, 

BY 

R. H. WOODWARD & COMPANY. 



3Be&lcatton. 



I Dedicate this Work 

To My Wife; 

My Staunch Comrade in every Fortune, 

AND 

My Unfaltering Ally in Many 
Vicissitudes. 



PREKACE. 



This Memoir has been prepared at the request of some old 
friends and soldiers of Gen, Johnston, and because I wanted to 
testify my affection for his memory and my respect for his char- 
acter. I was with him at the beginning, and at the end of the war 
between the States. I was the senior captain of the First Mary- 
land Regiment, before its organization, commanding it when he 
assumed command at Harper's Ferry, marched under him to First 
Manassas, and became in due course, colonel of that regiment in 
his army. 

I knew him as well as a young subordinate ever does know his 
commander-in-chief. And it so happened that I was in command 
as a brigadier-general, at Salisbury, North Carolina, when he was 
at Greensboro in April, 1S65. I was with him during all that trying 
time, and it was at my headquarters at Salisbury that he took 
leave of the generals of the Army of Tennessee after the conven- 
tion of Durham's Station. I, therefore, knew him as a soldier and 
as a man, and f admired and loved him. Since the war my inter- 
course with him was frequent and intimate. 

This sketch, written in a light-cavalry gallop, does not pretend to 
give detail of his campaigns or his battles ; it only seeks to give 
a general view of military operations, that can be taken in at a 
glance. 

The particular description of the movements of troops, of the 
hour they started, of the route they took, of the minute of their 
arrival, is, I think, inexpressibly tedious and confusing, except to 
the technical and professional student. I have, therefore, only 
tried to present a picture, and a map, together with a photograph 
of the General, as we all knew him, and as we want posterity to 
appreciate him. 

There is a general feeling among our own people, as well as in 
the country at large, against any reminder of the sufferings of that 
war, and against any reminiscence, which brings back painful 



VI PREFACE. 

emotions. But it is right and just that £)ur own children should 
understand the causes of our action, and that they should justify 
us for resisting such a civilization. 

Every statement herein recorded is true, and can be substan- 
tiated by incontestible testimony. 

I have added in the appendix an original letter of Gen. Grant's, 
as a matter of justice to him, for it was suppressed by the adminis- 
tration of Andrew Johnson. 

A comparison between the Federal Constitution of 1789, and the 
Confederate Constitution of 1861, is appended, showing the student 
of the evolution of institutions, what changes the Confederates 
sought to make in the Constitution their fathers had done so much 
to frame and to establish and to operate successfully. 

Bradley T. Johnson. 

July 75, i8gi, . 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER I. PAGE. 
Before THE War j 

CHAPTER n. 
The War Between the States 17 

CHAPTER in. 
The Array OF Virginia 26 

CHAPTER IV. 
The Campaign, of 1861, in Virginia 36 

CHAPTER V. *> 
The Battle of (First) Manassas 46 

CHAPTER VI. 
The Consequences of the First Victory 55 

CHAPTER VII. 
The Lines OF Centreville , 62 

CHAPTER VIII. 
The Army of the Southwest 94 

CHAPTER IX. 
The Vicksburg Campaign , loi 

CHAPTER X. 
The Georgia Campaign 112 

CHAPTER XI. 
The Fall of Atlanta and Sherman's Raid 119 

vii 



Vlll CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XII.^ PAGE. 

The Dragonnade of South Carolina, and the Sack of 

Columbia 151 

CHAPTER XIII. 
Sherman and Cornwallis in North Carolina 181 

CHAPTER XIV. 
The Convention at Durham's 226 

CHAPTER XV. 
The Record of Sherman's Dragonnade 239 

CHAPTER XVI. 
After the Surrender 241 

CHAPTER XVII. 
The Years of Reconstruction 244 

CHAPTER XVIII. 
Davis and Johnston 251 

CHAPTER XIX. 
His Last Sickness, Death and Funeral 270 

CHAPTER XX. 
Gen. Dabney H. Maury's Reminiscences 291 

CHAPTER XXI. 
Reminiscences of Col. Archer Anderson 307 

CHAPTER XXII. 
The Richmond Memorial Meeting 318 

CHAPTER XXIII. 
Reminiscences of Gen. Joseph E. Johnston, by a North- 
ern Soldier 326 

Appendix 33^ 



A MEMOIR 

OF THE 

IvIKE AND F^UBLIC SKRVICK 

OF 

JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON, 

Once the QMartermaster- General of the Army of the United 
StateSy and a General in the Army of the Con- 
federate States of America. 



CHAPTER I. 

BEFORE THE WAR. 

/ 

ON September 12, 186^, General Johnston wrote to 
President Davis, from his headquarters at Manas- 
sas, protesting against the relative rank as General 
assigned him by the President. *^It seeks to tarnish 
my fair fame as a soldier and as a man, earned by more 
than thirty years of laborious and perilous service. I 
had but this — the scars of many wounds all honestly 
taken in my front, and in the front of battle, and my 
father's revolutionary sword. It was delivered to me 
from his venerable hand without a stain of dishonor. 
Its blade is still unblemished, as when it passed from 
his hand to mine. I drew it in the war not for rank or 
fame, but to defend the sacred soil, the homes and 



2 LIFE OF GEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

hearths, and the women and children, aye, and the 
men of my Mother Virginia, my native South. It may 
hereafter be the sword of a general leading armies, or 
of a private volunteer. But while I live and have an 
arm to wield it, it shall never be sheathed until the 
freedom, independence and full rights of the South are 
achieved. When that is done, it may well be a matter 
of small concern to the government, to Congress, or to 
the country, what my rank or lot may be. I shall be 
satisfied if my country stands among the powers of the 
world free, powerful and victorious, and that 'I, as a 
general, a lieutenant, or a volunteer soldier, have borne 
my part in the glorious strife and contributed to the final 
blessed consummation."* 

I have begun this tribute of love, respect and admira- 
tion with this expression of sentiment by Gen. Johnston, 
because I think it gives the key to his character, and his 
conduct in the war between the States. 

The son of a revolutionary soldier, married to the 
daughter of his father's comrade, all the environment of 
early growth, and all the influences of mature life, con- 
duced to impress upon his character, sentiments of devo- 
tion to duty, and to country, to truth, and to honor, and 
to develop that chivalry and nobility which were his 
dominating characteristics. 

** My Mother Virginia," for whom his father fought 
under Greene and Lee, for whom he bled in Florida and 
Mexico, was to him the ideal of a lofty devotion. 
**My father's revolutionary sword," stainless when it 

♦Memoir of Jefferson Davis, vol. 2, page 151. 



BEFORE THE WAR. 3 

came to him, stainless it should ever be, and its lessons 
of chivalry, patriotism, fortitude and patience, were 
ever present during all the trials of a stormy life. This 
outgiving of his feelings, I have therefore selected as an 
introduction to a memoir of his public service. 

Soon after the battle of Lexington, there reported to 
Washington, then commanding the army before Boston, 
a young Virginian, captain of a troop of cavalry, aged 
nineteen, ardent, enterprising and daring. He was 
descended from Lionel Lee, who rode with Richard 
Cceur de Lion on the Third Crusade, like himself at the 
head of a company of gentlemen volunteers, and who 
for his services was made first earl of Litchfield, and 
also from Richard Lee who, with Sir William Berkley, 
held the Old Dominion for the king against the Com- 
monwealth, and who, as commissioner from Virginia, 
proceeded to Breda, and urged Charles IL to take 
refuge with his loyal friends and establish his govern- 
ment as King of Virginia, for the kings of England 
claimed to be kings also of Scotland, Ireland, France 
and Virginia. 

He was the son of that Miss Grymes who Washing- 
ton celebrated in adolescent and immature verse as his 
Lowland beauty, and who was his first love. 

Under such auspices it can easily be understood that 
he was v^elcomed with interest by the commander-in- 
chief, whose notice and confidence he soon compelled 
by his activity and intelligence. He had that genius 
for war which is bred in some breeds; in no English 
one, probably, so marked as in this race of Lee. Gen. 



4 LIFE OF GEN, JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

Charles Lee, no kin to the Virginia Lees, said of him: 
**He came a soldier from his mother's womb." 

In the operations in 1777, 1778 and 1780 in New 
York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, he was always 
placed near the enemy, intnasted with the command of 
outposts and the superintendence of scouts, and was the 
eye and ear of Washington. His activity attracted the 
attention of the enemy, and on the 20th January, 
1778, they attempted to cut him oE. The reserve of 
his picket line was then posted at the Spread Eagle 
Tavern, about six miles below Valley Forge. A force 
of two hundred British light horse rode through his 
lines and reached his quarters about daylight. Lee, 
with two officers and five men, barricaded the doors and 
windows of the tavern and fought with such vigor and 
determination that after a contest of half an hour the 
enemy withdrew, fearing infantry reinforcements. Lee 
took horse with his squad and actually pursued them 
to the British lines. 

Such an exploit rang through the army like the sound 
of a bugle. The commander-in-chief thanked Lee and 
his comrades in general orders. Congress promoted 
him to the rank of major, and gave him an independent 
partisan corps to consist of three troops of horse. The 
surprise and capture of Paulus Hook, in August, 1780, 
was rewarded by Congress with a vote of thanks and a 
gold medal. In the fall of 1780 the American cause 
in the South seemed irretrievable. Gates' Northern 
laurels had withered into Southern willows, Georgia 
was conquered, South Carolina overrun, North Carolina 



BEFORE THE WAR. 5 

paralyzed by internal factions; and with the conquest 
of Virginia Cornwallis hoped to restore all of the coun- 
try south of the Potomac to its allegiance. In response 
to the urgent appeals of those States, Greene was sent 
them, to restore the ruined fortunes of the Confederacy. 

The commander-in-chief could make no greater sacri- 
fice, nor afford more efficient assistance, than by detach- 
ing Lee and his legion. Congress made him lieutenant- 
colonel, and added to his corps three companies of 
infantry. It was the finest corps that made its appear- 
ance on the arena of the Revolutionary War. The men 
were the best mounted, on three-quarter or full-bred 
horses, best armed, best equipped, best drilled and best 
disciplined in the whole army. They were picked 
volunteers from all the other corps, and made a corps 
d' elite ^ which is capable, under proper leadership, of 
accomplishing anything that soldiers can do. The 
cavalry had the free use of the sabre, and rode into 
action ''boot to boot," says tradition, and were hand- 
somely uniformed. An old soldier tells me he don't 
believe this. No Southern cavalry ever were made, or 
can be made, to ride ''boot to boot." He fought under 
Stuart, and he knows. 

When, therefore, Lee's legion, in the early winter of 
1780, marched through the county side from Philadel- 
phia to Charlotte, North Carolina, they set the country 
aflame. Their commander, the impersonation of manly 
beauty, of knightly grace and of soldierly bearing, 
carried his twenty-two years like a decoration, and not 
a man behind him but bore the port and mien of martial 



6 LIFE OF GEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

valor. Just before Christmas, 1780, this martial array, 
aroused the hamlet of Farmville, in Prince Edward 
county, Virginia. At school there, was Peter Johnston, 
grandson of a Scotchman, and of that blood whose feud 
with the Maxwell's has furnished food for song and 
story for three centuries. Without standing upon any 
order, without why or wherefore, young Peter threw 
aside books, mounted his horse, and ** joined the 
cavalry." 

His intelligence and courage soon won him the com- 
mission of ensign, and for leading the forlorn hope in 
the attack on Wright's Bluff, in South Carolina, where 
he cut away the abattis to clear a way for the storming 
party, Peter Johnston was thanked in orders. 

The war over, he returned to Prince Edward, where 
he embraced the profession of the law and became 
judge of the circuit embracing the southwestern part of 
Virginia. He was Speaker of the Virginia House of 
Delegates when the resolutions of 1798-99 were adopted 
by that body. 

He married Mary Wood, a niece of Patrick Henry, 
who on February 3, 1807, bore him a son who was 
named Joseph Eggleston, after a Captain of the Legion, 
his father's comrade and friend. 

The child was born at Cherry Grove, his father's 
plantation, near Farmville, Virginia, and spent his early 
years amid the scenes and surrounded by the traditions 
which clustered around the hearth of a revolutionary 
soldier. His father had been a soldier of the Legion. 
His godfather for whom he was named had ridden with 



BEFORE THE WAR. y 

Lee and charged with Washington ; in his mother's 
veins was the blood of the leader of the resistance to 
tyranny in America, the forest born Demosthenes, and 
every breath the child and lad breathed, inspired him 
with the tradition of liberty, the sentiment of chivalry 
and devotion to honor, right and duty. 

Every gentleman in the neighboring country had 
ridden with William Campbell, to drive back Ferguson, 
and had formed part of that circle of fire which had 
destroyed British control in the South, at the battle of 
King's Mountain. 

With such surroundings, it was necessary for him to 
become a soldier, and in 1829, he graduated at the 
Military Academy at West Point in the same class with 
Robert Edward Lee — son of his father's commander, 
comrade and life long friend, and was commissioned 
Second Lieutenant in the Fourth Artillery, as is customary 
in the military service of the United States. He served 
his turn of garrison duty at the various posts of the 
United States at Fort Columbus, New York in 1830-31, 
at Fort Monroe, Virginia in 1831-32; was in the Indian 
war with Black Hawk on the northwest frontier in 1832, 
where he served with Jefferson Davis, Lieutenant of 
Infantry and Abraham Lincoln, Captain of Volunteers. 
He was in garrison at Charleston, South Carolina, in 
1832-3, during the nullification controversy, and I have 
found no account of the position taken by him at that 
period. Many officers of the army contemplated resig- 
nation rather than to bear arms for the subjugation of a 
State, but I am not justified to say that Lieutenant John- 



8 LIFE OF GEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

ston entertained those views. General Jackson was a 
Southern soldier — he had led Southern men in battle and 
it mitrht well have been that the son of Peter Johnston 
of the Legion would have followed the hero of the battle 
of the Horse Shoe and of Chalmette. 

He was on duty at Fort Monroe in 1833-34, at Fort 
Madison, North Carolina in 1834, ^"^ ^n topographical 
duty in 1834-35. He was promoted First Lieutenant 
Fourth Artillery, July 31, 1836, and served as aid-de- 
camp on the staff of Gen. Scott in 1836-8, during the 
Seminole war. He resigned on May 31, 1837, and 
pursued the profession of Civil Engineer. He had 
married Louisa McLane, daughter of Lewis McLane 
and grand-daughter of Capt. Allan McLane, who had 
commanded a troop of dragoons in the army under 
Washington. 

Louis McLane had been Secretary of the Treasury 
and of State, and Minister to England in Jackson's 
administration, but in 1837 had been made Presi- 
dent of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Company, in 
which corporation, all the energies of the City of Balti- 
more, and the State of Maryland, were concentrated in 
the enterprise of opening the western country to the com- 
merce of the Atlantic ports. The slow promotion in the 
Army offered small inducement to an able and ambitious 
young man, to devote his life to the profession of arms, 
and the construction of the great road to the west, of 
which his father-in-law was president, seemed to open a 
career of usefulness and honor, which it was his duty 
to embrace. 



BEFORE THE WAR. 9 

But the call to his soldier blood could not be resisted, 
and he returned to the army in Florida with the rank of 
first lieutenant of topographical engineers, on July 7, 

1838. 

The struggle of the Seminoles to retain possession of 
the graves of their ancestors and the homes of their 
fathers, was but another chapter in the history of the 
never ending encroachment of the superior race upon 
the inferior, and another illustration of the irreconcilable 
conflict forever going on between the forces of civiliza- 
tion and barbarism. Whenever, wherever and however 
any black, brown or colored race has ever anywhere, 
possessed anything, the white race wanted, the whites 
have taken it from them. Whether it be the invasion of 
the peninsula of Hindostan, or the Valley of the Nile, 
or the fertile plains of Western Europe, or the two 
American continents, the fair-haired race from the table 
lands of Central Asia has possessed the land and has 
cultivated it. It is now about to exterminate the inferior 
races of Africa, just as in the last three centuries it has 
eliminated the colored races in America. Peruvian and 
Mexican, Pequot and Susquehannah, Cherokee, Choc- 
taw, Sioux and Sac, have all faded away, by the opera- 
tion of the inexorable law of the survival of the fittest. 
But the Seminole made gallant and bloody defence. 
In the dark recesses of the cypress swamps, in the 
gloomy aisles of the everglades, for a generation they 
defied pursuit or capture. Many a soldier in blue was 
lost there, leaving not a trace, and the black waters of 
those mysterious alleys, closed over and concealed 



lO LIFE OF GEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

many a tragedy. The pursuit of \he Seminoles was as 
perilous and thankless a duty as ever a soldier per- 
formed. 

During the Christmas holidays, 1835, Major Dade, 
with no men, was set upon, and the last man toma- 
hawked and killed. This was kno\\Ti in army chroni- 
cles as Dade's massacre. 

When, therefore. Lieutenant Johnston reported for 
duty to General Zachary Taylor, in July, 1838, it was 
on no holiday tour he was about to embark, nor the 
work of a carpet knight, that he undertook. Toil, priva- 
tion, danger, the lot of every soldier, never confronted 
one in more forms, than in the war in Florida with the 
Seminoles. As a skilled and experienced engineer, his 
services were immediately called into requisition. The 
amphibious requirements of the everglades necessitated 
the organization of a corps, half marine and half mili- 
tary. Boats manned by sailors were used to convey 
soldiers on reconnoissance and from place to place. 

A force of this kind, to which Lieutenant Johnston 
was attached as engineer, with no command of troops, 
was exploring the lakes and ponds and water alleys of 
the everglades, in boats, when they ran into an ambus- 
cade, and at the first fire from the banks the officer in 
command was killed. In an instant Johnston assumed 
command, asserted control of the men, landed them, 
charged his concealed enemy and drove them from 
cover to cover, until he had restored the moral of the 
command, and then fought his way back seven miles 
to camp. Lieut, Robert M, McLane, of the fourth 



BEFORE THE WAR. II 

artillery, his brother-in-law, was sent out with a party to 
reinforce and cover him, but he found Johnston in per- 
fect control of the situation, falling back on his own 
terms and at his own convenience. McLane has since 
been Member of Congress, Governor of Maryland and 
Minister to France, but he has never performed more 
gallant duty than this of leading a forlorn hope to the 
rescue of his friend and comrade. 

During this affair Lieutenant Johnston was hit by a 
rifle ball on the top of the forehead, and the ball running 
round under the scalp, came out behind, inflicting a 
flesh wound, not serious. The coat he wore on this 
occasion was long preserved as a curiosity in the com- 
mand. It had thirty bullet holes in it. A suitable 
souvenir for the son of Ensign Johnston, who cut away 
the abattis at Wright's Bluff in 1781 to clear the way 
for the stormers. He was in charge of the Black River 
improvement in New York in 1838-39, of the Sault St. 
Marie in 1840, the boundary line between Texas and 
the United States in 1841, the harbors on Lake Erie in 
1841, and the Topographical Bureau at Washington in 
1841-42. He again served in the Florida War in 
1842-43, when the long struggle was substantially 
brought to an end by the expatriation and extermination 
of the Seminoles. 

He was acting assistant adjutant general in 1842-43, 
was on the survey of the boundary between the United 
States and the British Provinces in 1843-44, and on the 
coast survey in 1844-46, and was promoted captain in 
the corps of topographical engineers September 21, 1846. 



12 LIFE OF GEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

The annexation of Texas brought 'on a war with Mexico, 
and two lines of operation were decided upon by the 
administration of Polk against the Republic of Mexico. 

One was by an army moving from the lower part of 
the Rio Grande to occupy and segregate the Northern 
States of Mexico from the capital, the other was by 
direct attack on the Fortress of Vera Cruz, to secure it 
as the base of operations against the City of Mexico. 
These two co-operating movements were believed to be 
most effective, and were adopted as the strategy of 
the war. 

The campaign of Scott, beginning with the reduction 
of the Fortress of San Juan d'Ulloa and the fortified 
city of Vera Cruz and ending with the capture and occu- 
pation of the City of Mexico, for military genius in the 
commander, for endurance, daring and gallantry in 
officers and men, is not excelled in the annals of war. 
The highroad from the seaport to the capital has been 
for centuries the way of approach to the heart of Mexico. 
Constructed probably by the Astecs, improved by the 
engineering skill of the Spaniards when they were the 
first soldiers of the age, it had been fortified and pre- 
pared for defence by all the expedients known to the 
military art. Cortez marched over it to the Conquest of 
Mexico, and prevailed with superior arms and civilized 
skill over an army half barbarian^ and insufficiently 
equipped. 

Scott moved over the same line with an utterly inferior 
force in numbers, against fortifications constructed on the 
most approved principles of engineering, and mounted 
with the best artilery that modern art could furnish. 



BEFORE THE WAR. I3 

The roadway from the sea rises over successive 
chains of mountains, and passes through mountain 
gorges which one after another were defended by earth 
works and heavy guns ranged in parallel lines one 
above the other. At three days march from Vera Cruz, 
the pass of Cerro Gordo made an obstacle almost insur- 
mountable. 

The Mexican General in Chief, Santa Anna, with 
sixteen thousand men, occupied this formidable position. 
The road led through a rocky ravine, overhung on each 
side by precipices fortified with line above line, of earth- 
works, defended by artillery and infantry. 

On the i8th of April, 1847, Scott, with eight thousand 
men, attacked and carried the place, with the precision 
of a game of chess. 

Every movement of every brigade was worked out 
beforehand, every hour specified every route marked out, 
and all explained in orders to the troops before going 
into action. Scott's order of battle of the 17th was a 
prophecy of what would be done as well as an order of 
what ought to be done. Captain Johnston, in discharge 
of his duty as topographical engineer, made the recon- 
noissance on which Scott's plan and movements were 
largely based, and in so doing he was badly wounded 
and for which he was promoted Lieutenant Colonel and 
Colonel April 12, 1847, his promotion being for gallant 
and meritorious service at the battle of Cerro Gordo, 
was dated from the day of the service and the wound, 
and not from the day of the battle. 

Scott says in his report: "The plan of attack 



14 LIFE OF GEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

sketched in General Orders No. ii*i forwarded herewith, 
was finely executed by this gallant army before 2 o'clock 
P. M. yesterday." 

Pressing on with vigor and determination in August, 
Scott carried the fortified positions of Contreras and 
Cherubusco. The fortress of Chapultepec then con- 
fronted him as the last tenable point of defence, for the 
City of Mexico. 

Chapultepec is the historical fortress of Mexico. 
Occupied by the Astec Emperors, it was retained by 
their Spanish successors as the key to the Valley of 
Mexico and to the capitol of the nation. Crowned by a 
strong building of masonry, which had been a palace, 
and then converted into a citadel, the base of the hill 
was girdled by a stone wall four feet thick and twenty 
feet high. 

The lower slope was honey-combed with mines 
and protected by breast-works heavily manned with 
troops. The place was inaccessible save by storm. 
The position of the wall was such as to render a breach 
by artillery impracticable, and the only way through, 
was to go over by aid of ladders. 

On September 13, 1847, the intrepid Americans car- 
ried the place by assault. Lieutenant-colonel Johnston 
leading four companies of the voltigeurs. He was 
severely wounded, but Scott reported that he was the 
first to plant a regimental color on the ramparts of the 
fortress. 

An army tradition says that Johnston's ladder proving 
too short J lithe and active as an athlete, he made a 



BEFORE THE WAR. I5 

soldier raise him on his shoulders, and thus shove him 
into an embrasure, whereby he got in first. 

The surrender of the City of Mexico and the peace 
followed, and he came home with a reputation second to 
none in that galaxy of brilliant soldiers. Among his 
comrades were Pierce, afterwards President of the 
United States; Captain Robert E. Lee, Lieutenant 
Hooker, commander of the Army of the Potomac ; 
Beauregard, E. Kirby Smith, Stevens, who died under 
the Union flag at Chantilly ; Dabney Maury, who won 
fame by his defence at Mobile against Farragut; Geo. 
B. McClellan, and that long list, who then and since 
have shed imperishable renown, on the name and valor 
of the American soldier. 

Johnston's training and accomplishment was second 
to that of no man who ever wore the uniform of a 
soldier. His experience with troops in Florida and in 
Mexico had made him master of that art which directs 
the movement, transportation and subsistence of troops 
in the field. His employment as engineer on fortifica- 
tions had afforded him an opportunity for study and 
reflection, which the life of an active soldier in war 
never gives, and his extraordinary intellectual force and 
ability had enabled him to improve his great opportuni- 
ties to the utmost. As if ia.^.c were preparing him for a 
great career, he served as chief of topographical engi- 
neers in the department of Texas in 1852-53, was in 
charge of Western river improvements in 1853-55, and 
was acting and inspector-general of the Utah Expedi- 
tion of 1858. As if to give the last measure of the 



l6 LIFE OF GEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

widest broadest military education, he was appointed 
quartermaster-general of the Army of the United States, 
June 28, i860. 

Thus having personally led troops in action, as staff 
officer having directed an army in the field, as engineer 
having selected and prepared lines for defence, he had 
been trained in the largest and severest school of the 
soldier, physically and intellectually, and I do not claim 
too much when I assert that in the year 1861 he was the 
best equipped soldier in the Army of the United States, 
accomplished in all the knowledge of the art of war 
and capable of directing great affairs and great armies. 
He was master of the art of logistics, the art of man- 
aging armies. 

Lee was a great soldier, but he had not had the 
scientific training that Johnston had. McClellan was a 
great soldier, but he never had enjoyed the diversified 
experience that good fortune and his own merit had 
afforded Johnston. 



THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES. I? 



I 



CHAPTER 11. 

THE ^VAR BETWEEN THE STATES. 

T is proper here to consider the political conditions 
which brought on the war between the States, and 
which justified and required Johnston to resign high 
rank in an established army, to cast his fortune with a 
side when he knew success was doubtful, and where he 
also knew that failure meant ruin to him. 

But the principles which controlled his conduct were 
so well defined that a bare statement of them will suffice. 

*^My Mother Virginia" and '*My Father's Revolu- 
tionary Sword " give the key to his sentiment and the 
clue to his action. 

Virginia was his native land, for whom his father's 
sword had aided to achieve independence, and while he 
had breath and an arm his heart could never cease to 
love his mother State nor his sword to defend her. A 
silly slander has been reiterated for thirty years, by 
people who know better and who persist in mendacity 
out of pure malice, that the gentlemen, who, educated at 
West Point, resigned their commissions in the army of the 
United States to defend their mother's homes and their 
father's graves, were basely ungrateful to the hand which 
fed them and had trained them in the profession of arms; 
nothing can be baser than this falsehood. Lee and John- 
ston were educated at West Point by Virginia money con- 
tributed by taxes paid by Virginia for the common defence, 



l8 T.IFE OF GEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

and there never has been a day since Virginia entered the 
Union in 1789, that the money paid by Virginia to the 
Federal government has ever been returned to her by 
expenditures within her borders or to her people. They 
were Virginia soldiers trained at Virginia's expense, 
and when she needed them they came to her like noble 
sons as they were. 

George Washington bore the commission and the 
uniform of the King of England, and he doffed the 
one and resigned the other to defend ]iis Mother Virginia. 
He was traitor and rebel sure enough, but success 
crowned him Pater Patria and apotheosized him as 
Hero, Patriot and Sage. But if Sir Henry Clinton had 
pushed his advantage at Monmouth, Washington might 
have been tried before a special commission as Der- 
wentwater or Monmouth had been tried before him, and 
might have been hung, drawn and quartered, and his 
head and limbs would have decorated Temple Bar. 

But this misfortune surely would not have changed 
the nature of his character or the tenor of his conduct. 
He would have still been the patriot, defending his 
native land and the hero, dying as Hampden had died 
before, in defence of the liberties inherited from free 
ancestors. 

Therefore it would seem that the only difference 
between Washington, who left the British Army to 
defend his Mother Virginia, and Johnston who left the 
Federal Army, then having become the Army of the 
Northern States to defend his Mother Virginia, is only 
the difference between success and failure — which his- 



THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES. I9 



torically, morally or logically, can in no way affect the 
question. 

The settlements of the English on the Atlantic coast 
of the North American Continents were made by au- 
thority of grants from the English Crown. At common 
law all corporations must be created by the Crown and 
the creation of corporations for the purpose of settling 
the newly discovered country beyond the Atlantic was 
the exercise of the long used, and admitted power, inher- 
ent in the Crown. Some were trading corporations, as 
the grant to the London Company or the Plymouth 
Company, or the Virginia Company. Some were corpo- 
rations sole, as the grants to Penn, to Calvert, to Sir 
William Alexander. These corporations were as dis- 
tinct and separate as those of London or of Yarmouth. 

They were all amenable to the law and were respon- 
sible to the process of scire facias of quo zvarranto or of 
mandamus. They could be restrained from exercising 
power not granted to them, and their charters could be 
taken away for an abuse of their powers. They could 
be compelled to perform their duty to the King or to 
their fellow subjects, and the Court of Kings Bench or 
High Court of Chancery had ample power to compel 
them to do right. 

In 1775, these distinct and separate corporations un- 
dertook to free themselves from the control of the Crown 
and of the Crowns Courts, and meeting in a convention 
at Philadelphia, each equal to the other, agreed in 1778, 
to terms of confederation, in order to form a perpetual 
union of free, equal and sovereign States. They all 



20 LIFE OF GEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

joined in this union except Maryland, who acted with 
and supported them until 1781, when she also came in. 

On July 4, 1776, these thirteen Provinces or Corpo- 
rations united in declaring^ to the world that henceforth 
they were free and independent States. 

In 1778, France made a treaty of perpetual alliance 
with the thirteen United Colonies, naming each one 
separately as one of the contracting parties. 

The treaty with the king of Great Britain in 1783 
acknowledged the United States, viz: New Hampshire, 
Massachusetts Bay, &c., naming each one of the thirteen 
to be *' free, sovereign and independent States," and 
'*that he treated with them as such." 

When the articles of confederation proved to be 
inefficient, the States, as States, called a convention to 
reform those articles, they met as equal States, each 
having an equal vote, framed' a new constitution as 
States and submitted it for ratification or rejection by 
each State for itself. Eleven States seceded from the 
confederation, which by its terms was to be perpetual, 
and formed a new union which was to be more perfect 
than the perpetual union which had only lasted ten 
years. The prime mover in this secession, who presided 
over the secession convention at Philadelphia, and who 
signed the act of secession called the Constitution, was 
George Washington, known to the world and in the 
hearts of his countrymen as the father of his country. 
During all this time, while these tremendous events 
were occurring when the thirteen free and independent 
States were struggling for life, first by forming a ** per- 



THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES. 21 

petual union," and then by seceding from that union and 
endeavoring to form a *'more perfect one," under an 
amended constitution, when two States refused to 
secede, and held on to the old original Simon Pure Union, 
no one, any where, had hinted, or pretended to intimate, 
that there was such a thing as an American Nation. 
The thirteen States united — the eleven States united, 
consisted of thirteen or of eleven free sovereign and in- 
dependent States. So they proclaimed themselves, so 
the King of England had acknowledged them, so the 
King of France had treated them, so all the Christian 
powers had esteemed them. 

Virginia, New York and Massachusetts, in seceding 
from the confederation and acceding to the union, had 
expressly reserved to each the right and power to with- 
draw from the latter, as fully as they had from the former, 
and they explicitly disclaimed the right or power to bind 
the hands of posterity by any form of government what- 
ever. Most of the seceding States on joining the new 
union, had insisted on certain amendments to the ordi- 
nance of secession, called the Constitution, in order to 
make plain beyond doubt or cavil, the nature of the 
new compact, and the very first business transacted by 
the Conrrress of the Union was the submission of these 
amendments to the States in the Union for ratification 
and adoption. North Carolina and Rhode Island hav- 
ing refused to secede, constituted still the old perpetual 
confederation. 

Number ten of the amendments at that time proposed, 
and ratified is in these words : 



22 LIFE OF GEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

*' The powers not delegated to' the United States by 
the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are 
reserved to the States respectively or to the people." 
The adoption of these amendments was by most of the 
States made a condition of their accession to the new 
Union, and without the distinct understanding and under- 
taking by the friends of the n*ew compact that these 
amendments should be adopted as part thereof, the union 
would not have been formed. 

It never entered the mind of any sane man, that by 
the Federal Constitution the States or the people intended 
to delegate to the United States that power of secession, 
and of changing the form of their government, which 
they had just exercised, and out of and by w^hich the 
United States had been created. On the contrary, the 
power delegated to the United States to alter, amend and 
change the form of government then constituted, was 
distinctly marked out and designated, and the mode of 
its exercise defined and limited. It could only be 
changed by the United States, with the concurrence of 
three-fourths of the States. 

This w^as the only power of alteration, delegated to 
the United States. All other methods of alteration or 
amendment were reserved to the States or to the people 
thereof. In the exercise of this reserved power, thirteen 
States in 1861, as eleven States had done in 1789, with- 
drew from the form of government constituted by their 
ancestors, met at Montgomery, Ala., and taking the 
constitution of 1789 as their basis, altered, amended and 
improved it, so as to provide for the dangers which the 



THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES. 23 

experience of two generations had shown. The articles 
of confederation of 1778 had proved to be insufficient to 
secure to the States and the people, the blessing of a 
stable and just government. The seceding States had 
substituted for them a constitution under which the 
country had prospered and developed. But by 1861 the 
power of government had been usurped by one section, 
within the letter, and in defiance of the spirit and intent 
of the law, and the minority, in the exercise of those 
rights by which Anglo-Saxon liberty had been protected 
and defended for a thousand years, withdrew from that 
government, which was no longer their government, 
and established a new Union, under an amended and 
improved Constitution, better suited to the new con- 
ditions of society, and better adapted to secure liberty to 
their posterity. No man can be found, even now, who 
will deny that the people of each State have the right to 
alter and amend and change their own form of govern- 
ment, at their own will. 

And it has got to be the law of heredity in the race, 
Anglo-Saxon, Norman, Dane, Celt and Goth, which 
conquered, setded and pacified England, that each 
generation is bound to transmit to those who come after 
it, all the rights and liberties transmitted from free 
ancestors. Their is no question of logic, or of reason, 
or of tradition, or of charter, or of written or paper guar- 
antees. We have inherited from our ancestors rights to 
be free, to be happ}^, to possess our own homes— ^our 
wives and our children — without challencre, check or 
molestation. Every generation has enlarged their 



24 LIFE OF GEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

rights, has struggled to increase them. In this struggle, 
always intensifying, never ceasing, never yielding, we 
have invented the right of habeas corpus^ to secure to 
each personal liberty, the right of trial by jury, to secure 
to the humblest protection against the most powerful, the 
right of home, of hearth, and of family. 

These divers and constantly-amplifying fortifications 
of personal rights, have been only the muniments of 
rights. The form has never been regarded — the thing 
is what has been held sacred — and no matter in what 
social organization our race has found itself, Saxon 
community, Norman feudalism, Roman paternalism, the 
right of each man to think for himself and do for him- 
self has been its radical idea; and deeply implanted 
so far back that its traditions give no clue to its 
beginning has been the fundamental, ineradicable, 
unchangeable law, that it is the duty of the father to 
transmit to his children all the rights of personal liberty 
which he inherited from his ancestors. 

The bee builds its octagon cell, the ant constructs its 
ways and its store-houses. No man can give reason for 
their acts ; they work out the law of their being. And 
the composite Aryan race centered in the Islands of the 
North Sea, are controlled, dominated, directed by a 
law as irresistible as ever guided and forced any action 
of animal or vegetable creation. The rights of liberty 
inherited from our ancestors must, by the law of our 
nature, be transmitted unimpaired to our children. 

Property rights, rights to personal consequence and 
honor, are of secondary importance, but the right to 



THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES. 25 

free thought, free labor, free trade, for every man to be 
secure in his right to one wife, and their children, to his 
home, the product of his own labor, or the 
reward of his labor, these rights must be transmitted to 
his children, enlarged if possible, but certainly and 
absolutely, unrestricted and unimpaired. 

This law of heredity in the race, of duty to preserve, 
protect and transmit all inherited rights to children, as 
fully as acquired from ancestors, is the law that has 
made the race the dominating, directing, controlling 
force of the whole world, in modern times, and in modern 
civilization. Where people are willing to give up all 
struggle for liberty, to secure to posterity rights 
inherited by ancestors, when they prefer present ease 
and luxury and comfort, to turmoil and contest for 
rio-ht, then that people are doomed to the fate that has 
overtaken all preceding civilization. Such were not 
the people confronted by the duty of action in*i86i. 



26 LIFE OF GEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE ARRAY OF VIRGINIA. 

FOR many reasons the environment of the early 
history of Virginia was peculiarly romantic and 
picturesque. When the force of the renaissance begun 
to be felt in England, and the vitality of the new learn- 
ing to be imparted to the hearts and minds of English- 
men, when the great changes wrought by Henry V^III 
had become operative, and the ideas of the reformation 
taken deep root, all-pervading energy, directed 
thought, ideas and action. The imaginations of men 
created realms from dreams, and stimulated efforts from 
aspirations. 

And this extraordinary excitement possessed all 
classes of society. The struggle of the R.eformation 
with the Papacy, of free thought with authorit}^, pro- 
duced intellectual and physical energy, never before 
equalled -in the history of man. 

The destruction of the Armada, made England mis- 
tress of the seas, while the imagination of Shakespeare, 
and the intellect of Bacon, gave her equal pre-eminence 
in the world of thought. 

In this prodigious effort of will, and mind, and body, 
Virginia was born. From the first, she was the Utopia 
of England and Protestantism. Spain had possessed 
all the Southern part of the new w^orld, v/ith its islands 
and its ocean shores, and from the Southern cape to the 



THE ARRAY OF VIRGINIA. 27 

Northern sea, on the West. France had seized the 
larger part of the North American Continent, from the 
lakes to the North Pole. Virginia alone, between the two 
great reactionary powers, represented progress, liberty 
and hope. 

Virginia included the Northern Continent, from ocean 
to ocean, and from the French on the North to the 
Spaniard on the South. 

She represented the cause of liberty, of free thought 
and free action. 

In the first company of Virginia were included all the 
leading historic families of the realm — sevent}^ peers 
and one hundred knights and baronets, and all the 
great merchants and trading guilds of the kingdom. 
Percy, of Northumberland, sent his son Henry to 
represent the family, whose antiquity, nobility and 
splendor, says the chronicler, antidates the Norman 
kingdom, and which for a thousand j'ears had fur- 
nished soldiers to carry the flag of England in battle, 
and statesmen to enlarge her authority and to guide her 
destinies. Hardly a noble family in England but 
was represented in that wonderful array which destroyed 
the Armada; hardly a family which had struck for 
England and free thought, under Lord Howard, of 
Effingham, against Parma and Medina-Sidonia and 
Guise, but was represented in the settlement of Virginia. 

Henry Percy was governor for a time, and left the 
title of his house to a county. 

Virginia was **The Dominion," and constituted the 
fifth of the dominions of the king, whose title was King 



28 LIFE OF GEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

of England, Scotland, Ireland, France and Virginia. 

She bore on her coat of arms and her great seal the 

proud motto: 

" Virginia C7i dat qiiintuin^^^ 

for she was the peer and equal of either of the other 

four kingdoms claimed by the English crown. 

The dawn of her history had been illustrated by 
Capt. John Smith — soldier, statesman, knight errant — 
who bore on his shield three Turk's heads, in memory 
of the three Turkish champions of the crescent he had 
slain, in honor of the cross, in open fight before the 
walls of Silistria. 

The country is a parterre of souvenirs, redolent and 
blooming with flowers of sentiment and romance ; it is 
a shrine of consecrated relics. 

Here at Powhatan is the very stone upon which 
Smith's head lay when he was saved by Pocahontas. 
There is Powhatan's chimney, sole relic of the power of 
the great emperor. Here is Bacon's Castle, where 
Nathaniel Bacon mustered the ''householders" of Vir- 
ginia for their first rebellion in defence of liberty and 
home. There is Bloody Run, which perpetuates the 
bloody victory of the Virginians over the savage on the 
very edge of the city of Richmond. There is the path 
by which Pocahontas came to give warning and save 
the infant State from extinction. Boscobel is held by 
the family to whose ancestor it was granted by Charles 
n for loyal service at the Royal Oak. Romancoke 
designates the spot of Claiborne's victory over the 
Indians, in consideration of which, the estate of 40,000 
acres was granted to him. 



THE ARRAY OF VIRGINIA. 29 

In this family is preserved the collar and star of the 
Order of St. Stanislaus, once belonging to Lewis Litde- 
pao-e, Chamberlain to the last king of Poland, and 
Knight of the Order of St. Stanislaus. In another is 
kept tne silver frontlet presented by Charles II to the 
Queen of Pamunkey, and still another holds the golden 
horseshoes, set with precious stones, given to their ances- 
tors by Sir Alexander Spottswood as the insignium of the 
Order of Tramontane Knights, who rode with him on 
the march over the Blue Mountains. Here is Green- 
spring, where Sir William Berkley and the CavaHers 
held high feast during the Commonwealth, when the 
King was over the water, and where they drank many 
a full bumper of Virginian wine, passing it from left to 
right over a tumbler of pure water. There was Green- 
way Court, where Lord Fairfax, descendant of the 
blonde Saxon and of Black Tom Fairfax, called to his 
servant on the news of Yorktown, to take him to bed to 
die, for it was time now. 

There is the road called Braddock's road, over which 
the British general, with his Virgmian aid-de-camp, 
marched to batde and to death. There is another road, 
known to this day as * 'Marquis road," which Lafayette 
cut through the forests of Culpeper to close in on Corn- 
wallis and the British. There is the stone which marks 
the post of Arnold's outside picket when he sacked and 
burnt Richmond. At Rock Casde is the mark 
of Tarleton's sabre where he hacked off the arms 
of Tarleton, borne by the Lord of the Manor, and 
carved in the wood over the chimney piece- Theie live 



30 LIFE OF GEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

the descendants of Taliaferro, who rode by the side of 
William, carrying his banner at Hastings, as he chanted 
the song of Roland and the rear guard, at Roncesvalles. 

Alexandria is named for Sir William Alexander, 
descendant of a Norse viking, who conquered the isles 
on the North Coast of Scotland, and whose descend- 
ants, as lords of the isles, reigned there for centuries, to 
reappear in Virginia and make their mark there by 
intellect, and force of will, as their ancestors had done 
with sword and dagger. 

There was the descendant of old Sir Humphrey Gil- 
bert, who, when his vessel, on his way to Virginia, was 
sinking, his last words were, "Be of good cheer, my 
friends, it is as near heaven by sea, as by land." 

Not a neighborhood, not a mountain peak, not a 
ford, nor a ferry, but has always borne a connection 
with a romantic and sentimental past. 

Tradition transmits legends of honor, of piety and of 
devotion. From every fireside proceeds the light of 
love, of honor, of family, and of friends. The aroma 
and the halo of romance ladens the air and glows 
around the hearts of the people. 

From these surroundings, and by their influences, a 
well-marked and distinct character has been produced, 
w^hich seems to be the most enduring and most forcible 
as yet evolved by American civilization. 

Polybius has a chapter on the characteristics of the 
Romans, who he describes as a singular people, for, 
says the Greek, *'They actually believe that they are 
bound to keep their oaths, and do keep them." Such a 



THE ARRAY OF VIRGINIA. 3 1 

waste of energy in telling the truth, and keeping faith, 
was incomprehensible to the keen, alert intellect of the 
descendant of the conquerors of the great king. 

But the solid manliness — the unreasoning obedience 
to duty, the devotion to truth — the respect for courage 
displayed by the Latin race made the Romans the 
conquerors of the world and gave them pre-eminence 
in intellectual force, and leaders of thought, in all the 
history of all time. 

The circumstances surrounding the settlement of 
Virginia — her progress as the Dominion, the individuals 
and incidents marking her development — have given her 
a concrete form and an actual existence to her children. 
The common language of the common people designates 
her as *'The Old Mother," ''The Mother of Us All," 
and the Virginian has no hazy, vague conception of 
country; Virginia is to him his Mother, the common 
Mother of the noble brood of noble children. 

^Said old John Janney, of Loudoun, Union man and 
President of the Convention of 1861, when taxed with 
taking sides with Virginia against the Union: "Vir- 
ginia, sir, was a nation one hundred and eighty years 
before your Union was born." The sword of Virginia, 
wielded by Andrew Lewis at Point Pleasant had 
shattered the Indian power in the Northwest, and saved 
the settlements from Erie to Savannah from pillage and 
massacre. The standard of Virginia, borne by George 
Rogers Clarke, had acquired that great empire north 
and west of the Ohio, and the motto of the Dominion, 
"^72 dat Virginia quintum,^^ had given way to the war 
cry of the sovereign States, "5zV Semper Tyrannis.^^ 



32 LIFE OF GEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

Every honor, every distinction, acquired by any 
Virginian, anywhere, is the right and property of the 
old Mother, and every right of the old Mother belongs, 
by equal right to all her children. They are the 
Romans of modern history. They love God, they tell 
the truth, they honor manhood, they despise the false, 
they scorn tricks. They are the English of Shakes- 
peare and Elizabeth, of Raleigh and of Drake, who 
have made the genius of England to be known wher- 
ever thouofht lin;htens or imac^ination alleviates human 
lives, and who circled the globe with the red cross of 
St. George. 

They have changed less than their brethren over 
sea, and furnish now the highest types of the character 
which has moulded England, and the closest family 
resemblance to their ancestors. 

There has been much derision and ridicule over the 
First Families of Virginia. They have furnished 
mirth for fools for three generations. But the First 
Families are facts. They are not separated by wealth. 
They are marked by character alone, and in all the 
vicissitudes of fortune, wherever they have been, and 
however called upon, they have promptly responded, 
and shown themselves first in fact, to the demands of 
duty. 

Whether as merchant in Hong Kong or sea captain 
against the Malay pirates, as pioneer to California or 
Australia or South African mines, as financier on Wall 
street, at the bar, in the pulpit or in the professor's chair, 
the scion of the First FamiHes has everywhere always 



THE ARRAY OF VIRGINIA. 33 

vindicated the law of heredity, and given another proof 
that "blood will tell;" and there vv^ere no second 
families. Every Virginian was as good as any other 
man, and no other man was as good as any Virginian 
unless he was brave, truthful, honest; money never 
equalized them. 

By the assize of arms instituted by King Henry II, 
whenever the royal standard was raised, the "array" of 
all men capable of bearing arms was bound to turn out 
to support the King's authority. Virginia opposed the 
war, begged for peace, called peace conference to meet 
her sister .States and avert war, and elected a convention 
to meet at Richmond to consider and decide upon v/hat 
ought to be done, what the duty and the honor, not the 
prosperity and the profit of Virginia, required to be 
done. 

When the President of the United States called for 
troops to coerce the States who had seceded, Virginia 
raised her standard, called her assize of arms and sum- 
moned her array of her sons to protect "the Old Mother." 
They came from everywhere, — Austin Smith from San 
Francisco, Bradfute Warwick from Naples, Powhatan 
Clark from Louisiana, Robert Edward Lee, Colonel of 
Dragoons, son of Light-horse Harry, of the Legion, 
Joseph Eggleston Johnston, son of Peter, Ensign of the 
Legion, Quartermaster General of the Army of the 
United States, Jeb. Stuart, Hill, A. P. The very 
earth trembled at the tramp of the Virginians as they 
marched to the assize of arms of the mother of them all. 

No such picture can be drawn of any event in history ; 



34 LIFE OF GEN. JOSEPH E, JOHNSTON. 

no such incident can be described. Webster said of old 
England that, "her morning drum beat, following the 
sun, circles the world with the martial airs of England." 
But when Virginia flung her standard to the breeze 
with her proud motto, "5zV Semper Tyramiis,^' and sum- 
moned her array, the earth blazed with the fiery cross of 
Vfrginia as they rushed to her defence. From every 
continent, from every clime, from all avocations, from 
the bar, the pulpit, the counting room, the work-shop, 
the Virginians came. 

"Their's not to reason why, 
Their's but to do and die." 

When the Sea Venture, after the romantic shipwreck 
at the Summer Isles, which gave Shakespeare the inci- 
dent and the locality for the Tempest, was about to loose 
her gallant commander, old Sir George Somers, when 
he gave up his manly spirit, he called his crew about 
him and "exhorted them to be true to duty and return to 
Virginia." 

The words of the old knight rang like a trumpet call 
wherever there was a Virginian, "Be true to duty 
and return to Virginia." Those who failed to obey that 
call, for there were a few, a very few, who did fail, b}^ 
their subsequent lives, did not furnish bright examples of 
renown, success or happiness, to encourage others in 
future crises to follow their example. 

It is due to candor to say that neither Lee nor John- 
ston approved the action of the other States, for they 
knew that such action would inevitably bring on war, 
and they knew what war meant, but there is no reason 



THE ARRAY OF VIRGINIA. 35 

to think that either of them for a moment believed that 
Virginia could, would or ought to act, except just 
exactly as she did act. With them, as with all other 
Virginians, the simple question was: "With or against 
blood and kin? For or against the old mother? " and 
the question answered itself in the asking. 



jO i.lFE OF GEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON, 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE CAMPAIGN OF 1861 IN VIRGINIA. 

nPHE Virginia convention, on the 17th of April, 
-■■ adopted an ordinance, repealing the act by which, 
in 1787, she had accepted the Constitution made at Phil- 
adelphia, and provided for accepting the Constitution as 
amended and accepted by the States at Montgomery ; 
the ordinance to be submitted to the vote of the people 
on the 24th of May. The secret was at once pro- 
claimed all over the land, and on April iplh, a Massa- 
chusetts regiment passing through Baltimore in response 
to President Lincoln's proclamation to defend the capital, 
was attacked in the streets by a mob and badly 
demoralized. 

The Virginians promptly took possession of Harper's 
Ferry, where there was a depot of arms, and were 
about to seize Fortress Monroe, but lost their opportunity 
through vacillating counsels of a State administration, 
faithful and zealous, but inexperienced in war. 

Brigadier-General Johnston sent in his resignation to 
the Secretary of War of the United States on Saturday, 
April 20th, and it was placed in the hands of the Secre- 
tary April 22, with the request that the proper order 
accepting it be promptly issued. This was done, and 
on the morning of the 23d, with only his personal arms 
and clothing, he left Washington for Richmond. 



THE CAMPAIGN OF 1861 IN VIRGINIA. 37 

His house, and all property of every kind belonging 
to himself and his wife, was left behind. 

Owing to an accident to the train, he did not reach 
Richmond until the next day, when he at once reported 
to John Letcher, Governor of Virginia, and was by him 
forthwith commissioned as a Major-General in the ser- 
vice of his State. Lee had the day before been placed 
in command of all the armies of Virginia, with the same 
rank. 

Gen. Lee assigned to Gen. Johnston the duty of 
organizing and instructing the volunteers, then rallying^ 
to the standard from- all quarters of the State, the Union, 
and the globe. 

The points to be occupied in force for the defence of 
Virginia were designated as Norfolk, Yorktown, a point 
on the lower Potomac in front of Fredericksburg, 
Manassas Junction, Harper's Ferry and Grafton. 

This it was supposed would make a defensive line 
where each place could support the other, and which 
would protect the State from invasion and save her peo- 
ple from the horrors of war. 

In two weeks Virginia acceded to the Confederacy, 
and Gen. Johnston, his place of Major-General having 
been abolished, accepted the commission of Brigadier- 
General in the Army of the Confederate States. 

The United States by that time had three armies 
threatening Virginia : one at Washington under Gen. 
McDowell, one at Chambersburg under Gen. Patterson, 
and one in West Virginia under Gen. McClellan. It 
was supposed, and indeed generally given out, by those 



3S' LIFE OF GEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

omniscient strategists, the newspapers, that Patterson 
and McClellan were to unite at Winchester, capture the 
Confederates at Harper's Ferry, and then march over 
the Blue Ridge passes, so as to attack Manassas Junction 
in flank, while McDowell closed in in front, and 
thus the way would be open for the "on to Richmond" 
move so vociferously called for and confidently expected. 

The military authorities of the Confederacy and of 
Virginia were under the most extraordinary delusion as 
to the value of Harper's Ferry. It is the point where 
the Shenandoah joins the Potomac, and their united 
flood forces its way through the Blue Ridge. It is a 
mountain pass, absolutely impregnable if the enemy 
will only attack at either end. But as a fortress to cover 
a line, or a fortified camp for- a military depot, it is use- 
less and indefensible. 

Good roads cross the Potomac at every point north 
and northwest of i't. A bridge led the way into Vir- 
ginia at the Point of Rocks, and practicable fords 
existed all along the Potomac, south and southeast of it. 

Instead of being a Thermopylae it was a trap, as was 
proved in 1862, when it fell after a twenty-four hours' 
defence before Lee, coming from the northern side. 
Lee, in 1862, forded the Potomac below Harper's 
Ferry, and in 1863 above the point, as Early did in 
1864. Ten regiments of infantry, a four-gun battery 
and a regiment of cavalry were collected there, and in 
the latter part of May, Gen. Johnston was sent to 
command it. His orders were impressive as to the 
value of the position, as the key to the valley, and the 
commanding position to protect Virginia from invasion. 



THE CAMPAIGN OF lS6l IN VIRGINIA. 39 

He reached Harper's Ferry on the afternoon of May 
23, and after a careful examination and report by Maj. 
W. H. C. Whiting, as engineer, on 25th he reported 
to Gen. Lee that the place was untenable, and ought to 
be evacuated without delay. He showed that the force 
under his command ought to be a moveable column, 
and not tied by the leg to a stake ; that the true defence 
of the valley and the northern frontier of Virginia could 
be best made by an army in the field, and not by 
fortified positions. 

And here began the difference of opinion, and diver- 
gence of views, between Gen. Johnston and President 
Davis as to the strategy of the war, and the policy 
which ought to be pursued to secure peace and inde- 
pendence. 

There was not an exact agreement between them as 
to existing conditions. Johnston believed that the 
resources of the North were inexhaustible. In arts and 
in arms, in men and in money, they could command the 
world. 

While the blood of the North had been modified and 
diluted by the emigration and changed conditions of the 
preceding ninety years, still the dominating ideas, the 
heriditary instincts, the physical characteristics of the 
North, men and women, were in the main the same as 
those that had achieved their independence in the 
rebellion of 1775-S1, that had constructed and operated 
the Constitution of 1787. 

They were a brave, self-reliant, patriotic race, and 
while they did not have probably the same individuality 



40 LIFE OF GEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

as the Southern people, in all *the characteristics of 
manliness — perseverance, fortitude, courage — they were 
the equals of any race that ever lived. 

The South, in Gen. Johnston's opinion, started out 
with fixed and definite resources. She had a certain 
balance in bank, and when that was exhausted there 
was no source from which it could be replenished. 

She had a frontier extending from the Chesapeake to 
the Western line of Missouri to protect against the 
invasion of an enemy innumerable in numbers, inex- 
haustible in resources, untiring in energy, unflagging in 
courage. The number of men she could put into the 
field was fixed and certain; bevond that limit it was 
arithmeticall}^ impossible to go. 

The North started with the difference of six to one 
against the South. As time Avent on and the waste of 
war was replenished on the one side and unrepaired on the 
other, that discrepancy was of necessit}^ to be increased. 

No mathematical proposition could be clearer than 
that, if the war w^as to be a trial of endurance, a strug- 
gle of numbers — that six must prevail against one, when 
six was to be increased to twelve and one to diminish in 
value. But in war, courage, genius, skill, audacity, 
sometimes compensates for discrepancies in force. 
Momentum is made of weight and velocity, and the 
lighter weight may have the greater momentum. At 
this early stage of the struggle, Gen. Johnston sought to 
impress his views on the Confederate authorities that the 
policy of defending posts, positions, lines and ports was 
untenable and could only lead to certain and irretrieva- 
ble disaster. 



THE CAMPAIGN OF 1861 IN VIRGINIA. 4I 

The fortification of positions, the marking out of 
lines of defense, gave the whole initiative of war to the 
antagonist. He was left at liberty to select the time, 
place and opportunity for attack, and to make the cam- 
paign on conditions of his selection. 

Thus, with Johnston tied fast to Harper's Ferry, and 
Beauregard at Manassas, Patterson and McClellan 
could have combined at Winchester, corked Johnston 
up at Harper's Ferry, while with McDowell they could 
have swept the way to Richmond clear at Manassas. 

The same criticism applies to Gen. Albert Sidney 
Johnston's position at Bowling Green, Kentucky. 

President Davis did not agree with this view as to ^ 
policy or strategy. 

He was a trained soldier of long and wide experience. 
He had commanded Southern volunteers at Buena Vista, 
and he held a large and enthusiastic view of the 
capability of volunteers, especially of Southern men, 
inured to arms and accustomed to command a subordi- 
nate and inferior race. 

He did not minimize the vigor and duration of the 
war, for from the first, while deploring the fact, he 
insisted that war must result from the attempt of the 
Southern States to amend and reform the Constitution 
of 1787, and that that war would be long, bloody and 
exhausting. 

But President Davis though a soldier was an agricul- 
tural man; he did not fully estimate the enormous force 
and machine created by modern society, whereby one 
generation, or one country, can mortgage the future to 



42 LIFE OF GEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

the rest of mankind for the supreme present. He 
believed that the supply of cotton was so necessary to 
modern commerce that the South, which controlled that 
supply, could dictate terms and require support from 
nations, whose industries were dependent on her agri- 
culture. 

He believed that with the strain on the credit of the 
North, its currency would depreciate, its expenses 
would increase, until, at last, its finances would break 
down, and that it would not be able to raise a dollar or 
a man. Wait, said he, until gold touches 250, and the 
great monied interests, which are behind this war, will 
cry for peace to save what they have left. 

He did not appreciate, as none did, that the bond- 
holders and contractors had got into the position that 
success only could save them from ruin, and they were 
forced by necessity to stake everything on success. 

This divergence of view between the Confederate 
authorities at the very beginning of the war kept on 
widening, mutual confidence was absent, and the con- 
sequences to the cause of the Confederacy were prodi- 
gious and fraught with overwhelming evil. 

It would seem to have been unavoidable. Mr. Davis 
and Gen. Johnston were both men of very positive 
character; both were soldiers of experience; both had 
thought over the problems of this war which they both 
deplored and both saw was inevitable, and when, there- 
fore, they arrived at different conclusions on funda- 
mental principles, it is not reasonable to expect either to 
yield. It was Johnston's duty to have given obedience, 



THE CAMPAIGN OF 1861 IN VIRGINIA. 43 

prompt and ready. This he did. But he never changed 
the convictions of his mind as to the proper strategy for 
the struggle. 

This is an unfortunate position for a soldier to occupy 
toward his superior. In the profession of arms, mind 
and muscle, body, heart and soul must always go 
together, and he who criticizes his commanding officer 
will impair his own efficiency, even though ever so 
zealous to contribute to the success of the common 
cause, the glory of one's country. 

Gen. Beauregard had taken command at Manassas 
about a week after Gen. Johnston had assumed charge 
at Harper's Ferry, and by correspondence and staff 
officers a perfect understanding was arrived at, that the 
first one attacked should be supported by the other. 

But Harper's Ferry was the place to be supported not 
to give support. It was an exposed point on the frontier, 
with its communications, and its base of supplies liable 
to be cut off on either side at any time. 

On the loth of June, Patterson advanced from Cham- 
bersburg to Hagerstown with eighteen thousand men. 
Hagerstown is six miles from the Potomac at Williams- 
port, and once across the river, Patterson would be as 
•near Winchester as Johnston at I^arper's Ferry. 

At the same time came news that McClellan's ad- 
vance had reached Romney. Romney is forty-three 
miles from Winchester, while Williamsport and Harper's 
Ferry are each about thirty miles from that point; a-half 
a day's march then by Patterson and McClellan would 
ensure their junction at Winchester and close Johnston 
in at Harper's Ferry. 



44 LIFE OF GEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

On the 15th, the baggage and stores of the troops 
had been sent ahead. x\lmost every soldier had a 
trunk, many of them Saratoga trunks. The Confed- 
erates left Harper's Ferry and marched three miles 
beyond Charlestown, where they bivouacked for the 
night at Turner's Spring. * 

The next morning, mformation having been received * 
that Patterson had crossed the Potomac and was advan- 
cing along the valley pike south of Martinsburg, 
Johnston moved across the country and took position at 
Bunker Hill to intercept him. 

Immediately on receipt of the movement of McClellan, 
Col. A. P. Hill of Thirteenth Virginia, with Col. Gibbon, 
Tenth Virginia, and Col. Vaughan, Third Tennessee, 
had been sent to Romney to hinder, delay or prevent 
further move from that direction. 

All day of June 17th the Confederates waited Patter- 
son at Bunker Hill, m 'high spirits of another 17th of 
June at another Bunker Hill. 

But Patterson recrossed the river, not on account of 
Johnston's demonstration, but because some of his best 
troops had been taken from him. 

Gen. Johnston then proceeded to Winchester, where 
he took position on the valley pike three miles north of 
the town, and was soon rejoined by Hill, who had 
burned the bridge of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad at 
New Creek and captured two guns and a set of colors, 
by the hands of Vaughan and the Third Tennessee. At 
Winchester the army was reinforced and reorganized. 

Jackson's brigade, of Second, Fourth, Fifth and 



THE CAMPAIGN OF l86'I IN VIRGINIA. 45 

Twenty-Seventh Virginia regiments, and Pendleton's 
batter3\ Bee's, of Second and Eleventh Mississippi, 
Fourth Alabama and Second Tennessee, and Imboden's 
battery. Elzey's, of the Tenth and Thirteenth Virginia, 
Third Tennessee and First Maryland, Elzey being 
colonel of First Maryland and senior colonel of the 
brigade and Groves' battery. And Bartow's, of Seventh, 
Eighth and Ninth Georgia regiments. First Kentucky 
and Alburtis' battery. Subsequently the Thirty-third 
Virginia w^as added to Jackson's brigade, the Sixth 
North Carolina to Bee's, and the Eleventh Georgia to 
Bartow's. 

A fifth brigade was formed for Brigadier-General E. 
Kirby Smith, of the Nmeteenth Mississippi, Eighth, 
Ninth, Tenth and Eleventh Alabama and Stanard's 
battery. 

This force was known as the Army of the Shenan- 
doah. 

The twenty-five regimenrs named were reduced by 
mumps, measles and camp diseases, so that they aver- 
aged about five hundred effective men. 



46 LIFE OF GEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE BATTLE OF FIRST MANASSAS. 

ON the i8th of July, 1861, the army of the Shenan- 
doah was reposing in its camps in the beautiful 
fields on the valley pike nojrth of Winchester; morning 
drill was over and there was nothing to be done but to 
get dinner, and smoke and sleep until the drums beat for 
afternoon drill. The men were busy over their skillets 
and "spiders" at innumerable fires along the lines, and 
the smell of savory cookery scented the air. In an 
instant a thrill pervaded everything. Not a word had 
been said; not a trumpet sounded;. not a drum beat, but 
every one felt that something had happened. The 
Generals straightened up ; the Colonels drew up their 
sword belts; the line officers kicked their legs and fell 
into groups, all in silent expectation. 

Within three minutes orderlies from brigade head- 
quarters stride up to regimental headquarters. The 
adjutants fly out, and in a moment the air throbs with 
the drum beat of the assembly. One all-pervading 
cheer; one thrilling yell in an anstant pervaded that 
whole army, and in an hour tents were struck, wagons 
packed and the brigades in column, their right resting 
on the road, ready for the word. 

Down the dusty pike in the hot July afternoon ; down 
the streets of gallant Winchester; sweethearts and 
wives waving encouragement and courage from every 



THE BATTLE OF FIRST MANASSAS. 47 

window. Not an order had given notice, not a word 
had been said, but ever}^ one knew that Beauregard 
had been attacked, and that they were marching to the 
firing. 

When the army had become stretched out alono; the 
road so as to be clear of the town, the column was 
halted and an order read at the head of each regiment 
from Gen. Johnston, mforming them that the battle had 
opened that day at Manassas, and that it was the duty 
of every man to *'step out," so as to be there in time to 
share in the danger and the glory of the first Confed- 
erate victory. 

But alas for enthusiasm and sentiment. The human 
machine has its limitations; some things it can do, and 
some things it cannot. Green men fresh from city 
pavements or country fields have tender feet, and tender 
feet become blistered, and men with blistered feet can't 
walk, no matter how hot the heart is, no matter how 
high the spirit is, when feet are one solid blister from 
tip of toe to end of heel, the most ardent patriot, the 
most chivalric knight will limp and halt and lay down 
in the road side. 

The plan of the Generals was for Johnston to march 
from Winchester and strike McDowell on his flank as 
he moved against Beauregard.^ The fact of the 
soldiers was, that their feet got sore after the first hour's 
march, and they couldn't get to Manassas in time to 
keep McDowell from routing Beauregard. 

♦General Johnston did not accept this plan of Beauregard. He thought the 
attempt of two converging armies of volunteers to attack involved too much risk, 
and he rejected its proficiency to concentrate his force before going to battle. 



48 LIFE OF GEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

Gen. Johnston had never seen volunteers march. 
He had marched with regulars from Vera Cruz to the 
City of Mexico, and he had seen them start at a certain 
minute in the morning, halt at a certain minute for rest, 
resume the march and go into camp with the regularity 
of clock work. 

But the volunteer had no idea of regularity. If there 
was a small stream across the road he would lay a 
fence rail over it and cross with great care, followed by 
ten thousand men after him. Each man would lose a 
minute, so that the last man would be hours behind the 
place he ought to have been in, 

Jackson's brigade, afterward the Stonewall, famed m 
song and story, led and actually marched seventeen 
miles that day. The rest of the command only covered 
thirteen miles and went into camp. 

It was now the night of the i8th, and Johnston was 
informed by Beauregard that the whole of McDowell's 
army was before him, and would attack on the 19th. 

To march to Manassas with volunteers was plainly 
impracticable. So the head of the column was directed 
to the nearest railroad point. Piedmont, on the Manassas 
Gap Railroad, thirty miles from Manassas Junction. 

Here Jackson and his Stonewall brigade was dis- 
patched forthwith, and arrived at Manassas during the 
19th. 

Gen. Johnston and Gen. Bee, with the Fourth Ala- 
bama and Second Mississippi, and two companies of the 
Eleventh Mississippi, reached Manassas during the 
afternoon of Saturday, the 20th of July. 



THE BATTLE OF FIRST MANASSAS. 49 

Gen. Johnston had been appointed a General in the 
Army of the Confederate States to rank from July 4, 
1861. But the promotion had not been published in 
orders, and he had not been notified of it. Gen. Beau- 
regard was a Brigadier-General, but in order to remove 
all doubt in every one's mind. Gen. Johnston, while en 
route^ telegraphed the President to know what would be 
the relative positions of Gen. Beauregard and himself 
when their commands were united. To this the Presi- 
dent replied: 

Richmond, July 20, 1861. 
General J. E. Johnston, 

Manassas Junction^ Virginia'. 
You are a general in the Confederate arm}^, 
possessed of all the power attached to that rank. You 
will know how to make the exact knowledge of briga- 
dier-General Beauregard, as well of the ground as of 
the troops and preparation, avail for the success of the 
object in which you co-operate. The zeal of both 
assures me of harmonious action. 

Jefferson Davis. 

Johnston reached Beauregard about noon of the 20th. 
He had come to the conclusion that their united forces 
ought to attack McDowell, for it was reasonable to 
expect that Patterson would not be over twenty-four 
hours behind Johnston, and they ought to beat 
McDowell before Patterson got up. 

Beauregard at once assented to this suggestion, and 
submitted a map and order of march by which his com- 
mand could be moved upon Centreville, McDowell's left. 

He had chosen Bull Run as his defensive line, which 
was approved by Gen. Johnston. 



50 LIFE OF GEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

Johnston directed copies to be made of the order of 
march in the attack to be made on Centre ville, so as to 
be signed by himself and distributed to commanding 
officers. These copies were not completed until the 
morning of the 21st, and then turned out to be phrazed 
**By command of General Beauregard. Thomas Jordan, 
Assistant Adjutant-General." 

Now, General Beauregard was a Brigadier-General 
and not a General, and the order ought to have been — 
by command of General Johnston, the ranking officer, 
who had no right to shirk his duty nor his responsibility 
for the conduct and operations of the two armies then 
consolidated for the battle. Gen. Johnston endorsed 
these orders in these words : 

Special Orders No. | 

Headquarters Army of the Potomac. ) 
The plan of attack given by Brigadier-General Beau- 
regard in the above order is approved and will be exe- 
cuted accordingly. J. E. Johnston, 

General C. S. A. 

The military office creates and imposes certain duties, 
authorities and responsibilities as appurtenant to and 
inseparable from each rank in the service. The rank- 
ing officer is bound to command. He may direct his 
subordinate to take charge of one operation or all opera- 
tions on the field. He may put hmi in charge of a 
corps, a division, or a brigade, but he cannot thereby es- 
cape the responsibility of his authority. He is in command ; 
he is responsible ; all acts done are his acts ; all orders 
given are his orders. The form of papers issued and 
sent out to troops does not affect the substantial thing — 



THE BATTLE OF FIRST MANASSAS. 5 1 

who is in command ? Who has the rank which makes 
him responsible and makes it his duty to bear the 
responsibility, and not to attempt to shift it to sub- 
ordinates. 

As a matter of fact^ and as a matter of military lav^, 
the General on the field must command the Brigadier- 
General. And as a matter of fact, the moment Gen. 
Johnston arrived at Gen. Beauregard's headquarters, 
his rank placed him in command and made him respon- 
sible for the whole conduct of operations. 

Gen. Beauregard was a soldier of experience and 
genius, an old comrade of Mexican campaigns, and 
Gen. Johnston accepted his arrangements at once, and 
ordered them carried out. 

General Johnston says: "As we were riding forward. 
General Beauregard suggested to me that I assign to 
him the immediate command of the troops engaged, so 
that my supervision of the whole field might not be 
interrupted. So he commanded the troops under me, 
as elsewhere lieutenant-general commanded corps and 
major-general commanded a division under me." 
General Beauregard is one of the most brilliant soldiers 
that war has ever produced. 

His individuality, his personality, his aash at Manas- 
sas were beyond estimation. When the lines were 
falling back before the overwhelming Federal onset, 
he seized the colors of the Fourth Alabama and rode 
out in front and rallied the retreat and re-established 
the line. 

His personal gallantry saved the battle and gained 
the victory more than any one incident of the day. 



52 LIFE OF GEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

But Johnston was the superintending providence. At 
his place as general commanding, he issued the orders 
and moved the troops and directed the blows which 
produced the great result. It is unfortunate and fruitless 
that an}^ discussion should ever have arisen between 
friends, comrades in arms, great soldiers, as to which 
one won the glory of the victory — there was enough 
for both. 

But before any move could be made effective on the 
Confederate right to attack McDowell, it became evident 
that the Federal General had disarranored the best laid 

o 

plans by himself taking the initiative and turning the 
Confederate left. He crossed Bull Run at Sudley ford, 
some distance above the Confederate left, and moving the 
head of his column straight from the ford, faced to the 
left, and marched direct on the left flank of the Con- 
federates. This was not the battle as arranged at all; 
indeed, it was directly and perversely contrary to the 
preconcieved plan. 

The Confederates ought to have turned McDowell's 
left and cut him off from Washinorton. McDowell was 
in fact turning, had turned, the Confederate left and was 
marching to cut them off from Richmond. 

Bee, Bartow and Jackson from the Army of the Shen- 
andoah were formed *'a stonewall," right across the 
line of advance and held back the victorious lines. 

Bonham, Holmes, Early and Ewell of Beauregard's 
Army of the Potomac were hurried from the right to re- 
inforce the thin line of the Stonewall ' Bartow had fal- 
len. Bee had gone down, Johnson of Hampton's Legion 



THE BATTLE OF FIRST MANASSAS. 53 

was dead, Hampton of the Lion Heart was badly 
wounded, and the future of the Confederate arms was 
in desperate straits, when far to the left came the 
whistle of the locomotive. 

The train stopped where the Manassas Gap rail 
branches from theVirginia Midland, then Orange & Alex- 
andria Railroad. It held Elzey's brigade, First Maryland, 
Tenth and Thirteenth Virginia, Third Tennessee. The 
booming of heavy guns could be hearS way off toward 
the rising sun. Elzey got his troops out promptly, and 
was forming his regiments in the road, by the side of the 
railroad, piling their knapsacks in charge of a guard — 
when Kirby Smith dashed up in a strain, "The watch- 
word is Sumpter," he said. *' The signal is this," throw- 
ing his hand over his forehead, palm outward, " forward, 
to the sound of the firing." Elzey's brigade was one 
of two which had been assigned to Kirby Smith as a 
division, and the latter assumed command as soon as it 
got within his reach. 

The brigade moved through Manassas and out towards 
Young's branch, bearing to the left. Passing Cash and 
Kershaw's South Carolina regiments, it was led by 
Smith toward the left of the whole Confederate line, and 
Smith, having been shot from his horse, Elzey resumed 
control and directed himself still to the left. At length 
he struck the extreme left of the Federal line, crushed 
it like an eggshell, and the battle of First Manassas was 
won. 

The troops, tired b}' their quick march of five miles, 
were utterly exhausted, and laid down by some captured 



54 LIFE OF GEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

guns of Griffin's and Rickett's batteries. A half a 
dozen horsemen came rattling down the line, and the 
cheers which followed them, roused the men. When 
the word passed, *'It's Jeff Davis, Johnston and Beau- 
regard," a wounded boy raised himself on one elbow, 
took off his cap with one hand, swung it over his head — 
"Hurrah for Jeff Davis," he cried, and fell back dead. 
It was literally his last breath. 

Elzey's brigade was at once moved over the stone 
bridge and for three miles toward Centreville, when 
about sundown it was ordered back and bivouacked on 
the east bank of Bull Run. 

The men had been on their feet since twelve o'clock 
midnight of July 20-21, and had not had a mouthful 
during that eighteen hours of march, battle and excite- 
ment. About ten o'clock that night hard bread and 
ham, sent out by the forethought and care of Beaure- 
gard, were issued and the soldiers got "filled up." 



THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE VICTORY. 55 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE VICTORY. 

IT must be borne in mind that no man on either side 
had ever seen so many men in battle before. Scott's 
army of occupation of eight thousand in Mexico, had 
been the largest number that any of them had ever served 
with. Johnston had never seen volunteers march or 
fight before, and his observation of their marching 
power on the route from Winchester to Piedmont, had 
convinced him that they were utterly incapable yet 
awhile of accomplishing any thing with their legs. 
President Davis, on the contrary, had not seen the ar*my 
of the Shenandoah march, but he had seen the First 
Mississippi regiment, with him as colonel, march and 
fight at Monterey and Buena Vista. 

While the one underestimated, the other exaggerated 
the value of the American volunteer. 

It was not until after the Seven Days' Battles that the 
docility, the intelligence, the endurance of the Southern 
volunteer was appreciated by Gen. Lee. I do not 
believe that any Union general-in-chief but McClellan 
and Grant ever fully understood the value of the North- 
ern volunteer. The fact that General Johnston did not 
accupy Washington in the few days after the rout at 
Manassas, force recognition by the foreign powers and 
achieve independence for the South, has been greatly 
complained of among the Confederates, and criticised in 



56 LIFE OF GEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

the North, and by a foreign writer.. President Davis has 
left on record his opinion that Johnston ought to have 
taken Washington, and that if he liad acted on his 
advice he Avould have done so. The Count of Paris 
thinks that while he could not have taken Washington, 
he ought to have sent a few brigades across the Potomac 
to worry and harass the enemy. 

General Johnston himself was satisfied of the wisdom 
of his course and never changed his opinion. 

The light which time and experience throws over 
events and situations gives us clearer views that the 
actors had. Gen. Johnston was of opinion that his army, 
exhausted by the combat and the marching of Sunday, 
2 1st, without wagons, rations, cooking utensils or shoes, 
could not have marched the thirty miles from the Stone 
Bridge to the fortifications of Arlington and carried them, 
nor have crossed the navigable Potomac, dominated by 
war vessels. But Gen. Johnston did not know, for at 
that time no one could know, the enormous force of 
morale in men, the prodigious power of enthusiasm. 

When armies meet in death struggle, and one over- 
comes the other, the courage, the enthusiasm, the high 
spirit, the morale^ which the beaten army looses is at- 
tracted to and absorbed by the victorious army. 

The pursuit is always more capable of supreme effort 
than the retreat. The victor is stronger, more enduring, 
more spirited, than the vanquished. He can march 
farther, fight harder, eat less, sleep less, work more 
than his unsuccessful opponent. 

Jackson was the first man on either side who discov- 
ered this fact and had a full appreciation of it. 



THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE VICTORY. 57 

On the night of July 21st, no one had any idea of the 
extent of the Federal rout. It rained all night after the 
batde, and at daylight of 22d, Col. J. E. B. Stuart 
was sent with the First Virginia cavalry and Elzey's 
brigade to Fairfax Court House. On that march, the 
symptoms of disorder were so remarkable that Stuart 
refused to believe the evidence of his own eyes. He 
suspected that a ruse was being used and a trap being 
laid. The road was filled with debris — perfect muskets, 
accoutrements, uniforms, suttlers' wagons, handsome 
carriages filled with the choicest delicacies for a fete 
champetre; in one place a soldier picked up twenty 
double eagles, dropped in a woodpath at a foot apart. 
At another place a man's arm was lying on top of the 
top rail of a fence, the most surprising collection of sur- 
prising sights that the eye of man ever saw. At Fairfax 
the court house was packed full of brand new gray over- 
coats and the yard full of new wall tents. 

By the afternoon of the 2 2d, Gen. Johnston knew the 
extent of the rout. A year after he would have marched 
until the last man was barefoot; he would have crossed 
the Potomac at White's Ford — have taken Washington 
in reverse and by Thursda}^ J^ily 25, he would have 
issued his orders from the White House in Washington. 
Marching toward the enemy, his men would have found 
shoes on the wayside, they would have picked up their 
rations on the march, they would have found everything 
that was necessary. They were green troops; that was 
the Vv'ay to season them; they were inexperienced; that 
was the way to give them experience. 



58 LIFE OF GEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

It is easy to see it now. It was. almost impossible for 
Gen. Johnston to have understood it then. 

Lee did it in September, 1862. But Lee and his 
army had had thirteen months of marching and fighting, 
to let the General know what his troops could do and 
make the troops understand what they were capable of. 
But Lee's army after the victory of second Manassas in 
August, 1862, when he crossed the Potomac, did not 
attempt to capture Washington. 

He had beaten McClellan on the peninsula, he had 
beaten Pope at Manassas. His troops v/ere composed 
of veterans, tough campaigners, of a hundred combats. 

The sole defenders of Washington were the debris of 
beaten armies, who had never seen a line of battle of 
their adversary, without being driven back by it, and 
who had never had the inspiration of one small success. 

Yet Lee, in 1862, preferred having his demoralized 
adversary in his rear, and advancing farther into the 
enemy's country. 

We now understand that the capture of Washington 
in July, 1861, did not involve an attack on fortifications, 
nor the carrying of a bridge, nor the control of a navi- 
gable river. It did involve forced marches by green 
men, borne up by enthusiasm and capable under the 
excitement of the most extraordinary energy. It is easy 
now to see all this. 

It was impossible to have seen and understood it on 
the 22d or 23d of Jul}^ 1861. With the experience 
of the generals and of their troops, officers and men, 
on the 2 2d of July, 1861, it seems now as if they did 



THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE VICTORY. 59 

everything that men could do according to their Hghts 
at that time, and it is fruitless now to attempt to appor- 
tion the responsibility for what was left undone ; whether 
President Davis ordered, or advised, or expected an en- 
ergetic pursuit and a prompt advance ; whether General 
Beauregard or Johnston considered themselves con- 
strained by the presence of the commander-in-chief from 
entire liberty of action, it is bootless to inquire or to 
determine. 

General Johnston has definitely settled all such 
discussion by assuming the entire responsibilty for all 
the delay and non-action, and to the end of his life 
continued entirely satisfied with the wisdom of his 
course. 

It may fairly be contended that if Lee in 1862, with a 
veteran army of victors, crowned with glory and imbued 
with the confidence of invincibility, could not or would 
not attempt to take Washington from the debris of the 
armies which he had been booting about Virginia for six 
months, certainly Johnston was justified in not attempting 
it with utterly inexperienced troops. I believe it could 
have been done, but no one had a right to believe so on 
the morning of July 22, 1861. 

The consequences of the victory were not as damag- 
ing to the defeated, nor as advantageous to the victors 
as might have been expected. 

The Northern statesmen recovered from their panic 
in marvelous brief time, and at once applied all the 
energy of their immense machine to support the war. 

To make up the loss of the Southern market to the 



6o LIFE OF GEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

Northern manufacturer, they gave 'him a new and better 
market in war expenses. To give work to unemployed 
labor, they paid bounties to recruits and premiums to 
substitutes. 

The vigor of a democracy was never more vividly 
illustrated. The enthusiasm of the people took control 
of the last dollar and the last man, and then sent out 
into the world to borrow more men and money. 

The influence on the South was not so invigorating. 
The Southern people for several generations had trained 
themselves into a vainglorious mood toward the Northern 
men. 

They believed that they were inconquerable by the 
North, and that the men of the North were not their 
physical nor mental equals. The rout at Manassas 
seemed to justify their estimate of their value, and it 
was difficult to get States or societies to understand that 
the struggle had just begun. Manassas was considered 
to have demonstrated the futility of further effort to 
subjugate the South, and there was a sensible relaxa- 
tion of the effort in the South. The Confederate 
Congress, nor the State governments, had the least 
appreciation of the necessity of finance to support war. 
The}'^ believed that supplies could be raised indefinitely 
by mortgaging the future, and never did understand that 
the power of borrowing on the one side was only created 
by the faith in payment, and that a debt created, with 
no security nor provision for payment, becomes at once 
a burden. 

The Confederate government could have bought the 



THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE VICTORY. 6l 

entire cotton crop for bonds. It could have transported 
it to Europe and created a fund of a thousand milHons 
in gold, which would have floated four times that amount 
of bonds, have bought arms, fleets, moral support, rec- 
ognition, independence. President Davis from the first 
had the clearest ideas of the necessity of the emergency. 
Lee and Johnston certainly understood it as well. But 
the brains of the South were in the army. Her leading 
men, her thinkers and statesmen were in the field in 
charge of regiments or brigades, consequently her Con- 
gress was inferior to the Northern Congress, and from 
first to last there was not a single man in the legislative 
department of the government who appreciated the 
tremendous problem before them. 

The Confederate States were not crushed by over- 
whelming resources nor overpowering numbers. They 
were otit-tJioiight by the Northern men. The great brain 
of Chase, which conceived the financial system of the 
Union side, and the courage of Lincoln and the sagacity 
of Seward, administered the resources of the North and 
applied the machinery of currency, credit and industry, 
as created by modern civilization, in a way no Southern 
statesman was able to do. 

The monopoly of the currency, that machine by which 
trade and commerce and industry lives, was invented by 
Chase and seized by the Federal powers and wielded 
with irresistible force and inexhaustible resources. 

Therefore, the consequences of the rout at Manassas 
were rather favorable to the Federals and unfavorable 
to the Confederates. 



62 LIFE OF GEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE LINES OF CENTREVILLE. 

TOURING the two or three days succeeding tne battle, 
'^ Gen. Johnston moved up to Fairfax court house, 
where he established the headquarters of the army and 
distributed the Army of the Potomac in a line of canon- 
ments extending from north of the court-house down 
beyond Fairfax station, on the Orange & Alexandria 
Railroad as far as Wolf Run Shoals. They remained 
there during the summer, being instructed by daily 
drills, marches and alarms. 

In September, Beauregard, who was the spirit, the 
ela?iy the enthusiasm of the army, pressed down to the 
Potomac and occupied a line of hills from the south of 
Alexandria up, west and toward the north of that place. 
Mason's, Munson's, Upton's, Hall's hills were all occu- 
pied and held partly as points of observation, for from 
Mason's hill, Beauregard's signal officer could commu- 
nicate with his comrade in Washington, and also for the 
purpose of exasperating the Federals into a fight. The 
first plan, as a signal station, succeeded admirably. From 
Mason's hill at night, flashes could be seen and sent 
from and to a house in Washington, from a room in the 
third story of which movements of a lamp conveyed 
messages to the Confederate station in Virginia. But as 
a challenge or a taunt the move was a failure. 

McClellan was organizing his army, and could not 
be diverted to inferior enterprises. 



THE LINES OF CENTREVILLE. 6^ 

His first business was to make an army a fighting 
machine, his second was to use it for great results. So 
while the occupation of the lines of Mason's, Munson's 
and Upton's hills added greatly to the morale or the 
self-glorification of the Confederates, the only substan- 
tial advantage they acquired was experience in march- 
ing, in bivouac and in prompt movement. During this 
period arose a controversy which was painful at the 
time, and never ceased to be the cause of soreness during 
the rest of the war. 

When the thirteen Southern States withdrew from the 
Union of 1787-89, and amended the articles of Union and 
established a new Union under them, they expected that 
they would receive their proper part of the common 
property of all the States, their share of the army and 
navy and their proportion of the public lands and funds. 
The president nor Lee, nor Johnston, expected any such 
thing. They knew that there was to be a death struggle 
between the two systems, and that there was no alterna- 
tive but independence or subjugation. 

But the public expectation was that reason and justice 
would rule. Each State had had educated and trained 
at her expense, a body of skilled soldiers at the com- 
mon military school of all the States. They occupied 
various ranks and posts of responsibility, from General 
Winfield Scott of Virginia, Commander-in-Chief of the 
Army of the United States and Joseph E. Johnston, 
Brigadier-General and Quartermaster-General of the 
Army of the United States, and Robert Edward Lee, 
Lieutant-Colonel of Dragoons,.down to Lieutenant J. E. 
B. Stuart. 



64 LIFE OF GEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

When the States undertook to separate themselves 
from the Union, they believed that their citizens in the 
army w^ould, of course, follow^ their own people. And 
it w^as evidently neither just nor wise that soldiers, the 
breath of whose life was promotion, rank and conse- 
quent power, should be required to abandon the career 
of their choice and the results of the labors of life, and 
enter a new service on terms of perfect equality. 
Therefore the ConfederaU^migi:^^^^^^^^ 1861, 

first provided for the appointment of five officers with 
the rank of Brigadier-Generals, and in the same act de- 
clared that *'in all cases of officers who have resigned 
or who may within six months tender their resignation 
from the Army of the United States, and who have 
been or may be appointed to original vacancies in the 
Army of the Confederate States, the commissions issued 
shall bear one and the same date, so that the relative 
rank of officers of each grade shall be determined by 
their former commissions in the United States Army, 
held anterior to the secession of these Confederate States 
from the United States." 

The object of this law was to indemnify all citizens 
who left the service of the United States and entered 
that of the Confederate States by securing them, not the 
same rank, but the same relative rank, in the nevv^ service 
as they had enjoyed in the old. 

It was not intended as a promise to General Scott, 
that if he would leave the Army of the United States 
he would be guaranteed the Command-in-chief of the 
Army of the Confederate States, for before that law 



THE LINES OF CENTREVILLE. , 65 

passed, March 14, 1861, it had been definitely ascer- 
tained and settled that General Scott would stay where 
he was. But it was at the same time equally understood 
that General Johnston and Colonel Lee would certainly 
resign, and take commissions under the Confederacy. 

The act of Congress, therefore, was in substance an 
offer by Virginia and her co-States to Johnston, Lee and 
others — that if you will give up your places in the Army 
of the United States, we will guarantee you the same rela- 
tive rank in the Army of the Confederate States. You, 
General Johnston shall rank you, Lieutenant-Colonel 
Lee, and you. Colonel Albert Sidney Johnson, shall 
rank you, Captain Beauregard. This was plain and 
understood of all men. 

The five brigadier-generals under the act of March 
14, with relative rank as provided by that act, were: 

1. Joseph E. Johnston, (Brigadier-General U. S. A.) 

2. Samuel Cooper, (Colonel U. S. A.) 

3. A. S. Johnston, (Colonel U. S. A.) 

4. R. E. Lee, (Lieutenant-Colonel U. S. A.) 

5. G. T. Beauregard, (Captain U. S. A.) 

These were the brigadier-generals appointed under 
the act of March 14, 1861, with their relative rank as 
fixed by that act. 

On May i6th, the Congress passed another act, that 
the five Brigadier-Generals shall have the rank and 
denomination of Generals instead of Brigadier-Generals, 
which shall be the highest military grade known to the 
Confederate States. Therefore, 'under the law, the 
Brigadier-Generals were at once converted into Gen- 



66 LIFE OF GEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

erals, Joseph E. Johnston being first, Cooper second, 
A. S. Johnston third, R. E. Lee fourth and G. T. 
Beauregard fifth. Thus far the point is too plain for 
discussion. 

But when commissions were issued to these brigadiers 
turned into generals, the President nominated th^m to 
be generals in the Confederate service, first, Cogper to 
rank from May i6; second, A. S. Johnston to rank 
from May 28; third, Lee from June 14; fourth, J. E. 
Johnston from July 4, and fifth, Beauregard from Jul}^ 
21, the day of the battle of First Manassas. When 
General Johnston was officially informed of their nomi- 
nations and the confirmation thereof, he was deeply 
wounded, and greatly offended, as he had the right to 
be. He then wrote the letter quoted in the first page of 
this memoir. " But," said he, ** in order that sense of 
injury might not betray me into the use of language 
improper from an officer to the President, I laid aside the 
letter for two days, and then examined it dispassionately, 
I believe, and was confident that what it contained was 
not improper to be said by a soldier to the President, nor 
improperly said." 

When General Johnston wrote his narrative in 1S74, 
and his paper in Scribner's '' Battles and Leaders," ir 
1886, he had only the last page of this letter. Mrs. 
Davis has given us the full text in her memoir, and I 
have inserted the leading part in the first pages of this 
memoir. Looking at it now, after the lapse of thirty 
years, it must be conceded that General Johnston was 
within his right. 



THE LINES OF CENTREVILLE. 67 

He was the ranking officer who left the army of the 
United States, He was the only general officer who 
left that service. 

He was the senior, brigadier-general in the original 
organization of the army of the Confederate States, and 
by law, by logic, by justice, by the comradeship of 
arms, he ought to have retained his seniority when all 
the brigadiers were converted into generals. 

He had a right to be indignant, and to express himself 
as he did at the treatment he had received. But at the 
very beginning he had differed radically with President 
Davis, as to the policy and strategy of the war, as has 
been seen, and it may well be that the commander-in- 
chief of all the armies was absolutely unwilling to have 
at the head of his army, an officer who differed with 
him so radically as Johnston did. Confidence is a vase, 
once cracked can never be made whole, and these two 
points destroyed the possibility of Davis and Johnston 
co-operating with cordiality and mutual forbearance. 
They were too much alike to get along. Each intellec- 
tual, thoughtful, full of ideas as of sentiment; each 
with the highest ideals of duty, of friendship, and of 
honor. If they had agreed they would have been insep- 
arable in their ideas and their acts. Their union would 
have made a prodigious force for the Confederacy. 

But they were each high tempered, impetuous, jeal- 
ous of honor, of the love of their friends, and the}' 
could brook no rival. They required abr;olute devotion, 
without question. Neither could accord that confidence 
to the other, and they separated, and their divergence 



68 I.IFE OF GEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

widened every day undl the convention at Durham's 
station. 

During the month of September the Army of the 
Potomac w^as organized into four divisions, containing 
thirteen brigades. Major-General Earl Van Dorn 
commanded the first division of Bonham's, Early's 
and Rode's brigades; Major-General James Long- 
street commanded the second division of D. R. Jones, 
Ewell and Cocke's brigades; Major-General Gustavus 
W. Smith had S. Jones, Toombs and Wilcox brigades, 
and Major-General Thomas J. Jackson (Stonewall) had 
the Stonewall, Elzey's, Crittenden's and Walker's 
brigades. 

President Davis came to Fairfax on the last day of 
September, and called a conference with Gens. Johnston 
and Beauregard and G. W. Smith. 

It was proposed to cross the Potomac at the fords 
above Washington, take position in the rear of Wash- 
ington, and thus force McClellan out of his entrench- 
ments and make him attack. The President demanded 
to know what force was considered necessary for such 
an enterprise. Smith thought fifty thousand would be 
enough. Beauregard and Johnston considered sixty 
thousand necessary. The Generals proposed that 
twenty thousand men should be taken from the seacoast 
of North and South Carolina and Georgia, and thrown 
into the Army of the Potomac, and with these reinforce- 
ments, they considered that results could reasonably be 
anticipated highly profitable to the Confederacy. But 
the President considered it impracticable to strip the 



THE LINES OF CENTREVILLE. 69 

ports to reinforce for this move, and all idea of aggres- 
sive operations ceased for the season of 1861. 

About the first of November the department of North- 
ern Virginia was created, and Gen. Johnston assigned 
to the command of it. 

It was composed of the valley district lying between 
the Alleghany and Blue Ridge mountains, commanded 
by Major-General T. J. Jackson. 

The district of the Potomac, commanded by General 
Beauregard, extending from the Blue Ridge to Quantico, 
on the Potomac, and that of Acquia, from Quantico to 
the Chesapeake, commanded by Major-General Holmes. 
Major-General E. Kirby Smith, having recovered from 
his wound, reported for duty and was placed in command 
of the reserve. 

The summer and fall of 1861 was employed in the 
instruction of the troops. They suffered s-everely from 
mumps and measles, and some regiments whick had 
come up one thousand strong could hardly turn out 
enough effective men for camp guard. 

By October 19, General McClellan, having progressed 
sufficiently with the organization and instruction of his 
army as to make it capable of movement and enterprises. 
General Johnston withdrew from his posts on the Poto- 
vr ^c at Mason's and Munson's hills and his lines at Fair- 
fax court-house to a position at Centreville, which was 
much stronger in front and less easily turned. 

At this time the effective total of all arms in the 
Department of Northern Virginia capable of going into 
battle was forty-one thousand men. iVccording to the 



70 LIFE OF GEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

reports of Johnston's spies, the •effective force of the 
Federal army opposed to him was one hundred and fifty 
thousand. The troops went into winter quarters in log 
cabins which they constructed along Bull Run. 

During January, 1862, Gen. Beauregard and Major- 
Gen. Van Dorn were ordered to the Western army, and 
shortly afterward Major-Gen. E. Kirby Smith was sent 
to command the Department of East Tennessee. 

While the organization was thus greatly interfered with 
by the transference of Beauregard, Van Dorn and Smith 
to other fields of duty, the inorale of the army was radi- 
callyvimpaired by unmilitary interference from the Sec- 
retary of War's Office at Richmond. A large body of 
the troops had enlisted for twelve months in March or 
April, 1861. As the period of their term approached, 
the men became more and more restless. 

None of them contemplated leaving the field. Patriot- 
ism, pride and duty all combined to keep them up to 
the work of defending their homes. But they wanted 
to change their companies. They did not like their 
officers, or they wanted to change then* branch of ser- 
vice. They were tired of walking and wanted to ride, 
or they were tired of grooming horses and wanted to 
go into the artillery and so forth, and so forth. 

No man who was not present, and party to it, can 
appreciate the ferment that was going on in the Army 
of the Potomac in January and February, 1862. 

Everybody was dissatisfied. The commissioned offi- 
cers were uncertain in their positions, for they did not 
know whether they were to be retained in their places 



THE LINES OF CENTREVILLE. *]1 

in their companies, and their regiments. The men in 
the ranks were disorganized, because they were in a 
ferment for promotion. 

Bad as the situation was from the necessity of the 
case, it was ten times intensified by the lack of discre- 
tion at the war office in Richmond. 

While Johnston was trying to influence his people by the 
legitimate means of controlling his officers at Manassas, 
the war office was doing everything to disorganize his 
command and discredit him. 

The Secretary of War would furlough whole compa- 
nies without consulting the commanding General. 

Johnston writes: *'The Secretary of War has ordered 
a private soldier to be detailed on special duty, an order 
which I venture to say has never before been issued by 
by a Secretary of War in time of war." 

The Army of the Potomac at Manassas, from being 
a highly organized, finely tempered machine in October 
and November, 1861, had become little better than a 
badly demoralized mob by February, 1862. I have 
known twenty-one men taken from one company, de- 
tailed by a special order of the department of war at 
Richmond, without reference to the Colonel command- 
ing the regiment, or the captain commanding the com- 
P'-^.xy, much less the General commanding the army. 

While this was going on with us, we had certain 
information of the progress of organization on the other 
side. 

McClellan, beyond doubt, was a great organiz,er. He 
had the faculty of taking great bodies of men ^nd 



72 LIFE OP^ GEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

infusing into them one spirit, one idea, supreme confidence 
in himself. 

He was not a great General. He will never com- 
pare with Marlborough or Wellington, or Grant, or Lee, 
or the great soldiers that the English race has produced 
in the last three centuries. He was eminently an mtel- 
lectual man. He understood the mathematics of life. 
He knew that two and two made four, and given certain 
quantities of men, of weather, of roads, of human 
energy, McClellan was a great soldier. But he was 
utterly incapable of dealing with the **unknown 
quantity." He had no imagination. He could not 
project himself into the hearts and minds of his men so as 
to calculate or appreciate or estimate the value of 
enthusiasm with them. He thought he was a sentimental 
soldier. He believed he was a romantic knight. His 
conduct was keyed up to the highest point of sympathy, 
With chivalry, and honor, and generosity in war. 

McClellan never struck a foul blow, and never tole- 
rated mean men or mean methods about him. He 
generated and organized, and propagated an enthusiasm, 
a generous ideal of war, a high sense of chivalry, which 
is the duty of fighting the belligerent and sparing the 
weak, and he impressed on his Army of the Potomac 
the most intense feeling of personal devotion to him. 

His fight at Sharpsburgh showed that. No man who 
ever lived could have taken the debris of armies, one of 
which had been driven from Mechanicsville to Harri- 
son's Landing, another from Cross Keys and Port 
Republic to the mountains, another from Cedar moun- 



THE LINES OF CENTREVILLE. ^ 73 

tain, and then the whole three booted and kicked from 
Manassas to the fortifications of Washincjton ; no man 
could have remodeled and remoraled these broken 
debris of armies from September 2, to September 15, 
1862, and made them fight as he did, but a great soul. 
But McClellan fell below the measure of the greatest, 
because he did not know how to estimate the value of 
his own people and the force of his adversary at a given 
time. 

Before Richmond in 1862, he certainly ought to have 
pushed forward and taken hi^ adversary's base. At 
Sharpsburgh in September, 1862, he ought to have cap- 
tured Lee's army, but his fine mathematical intellect too 
clearly appreciated the quantities of the problem; given 
so much force, so much will, so much numbers on one 
side, and an indefinite quantity of will on the other, 
he could not tell what the result of the collision would 
be. Therefore, he had no collision. 

In August, September, October, November, 1861, he 
kept his raw levies in his camps. He drilled his men, 
he instructed his officers in never ceasing schools, where 
he made old soldiers drawn from all the armies of the 
world his drill masters. 

He had the most accurate dress parades, he had the 
most regular reviews, and he sacrificed everything to the 
style, the pomp-, the parade of war. The soldiers of for- 
tune he drew to him from the refuse of the armies of the 
old world — the Sigeles, Blenkers, Sir Percy Windhams, 
all the adventurers from everywhere, knew more about 
drill and style and appearances than the American vol- 



74 LIFE OF GEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

unteer. They were deficient in. brains; they became 
rattled in battle, they had not the faculty of becoming 
cooler and concentrated in high excitement. The South 
had only a few of such men ; the North had many of 
them, and not one stood the test of use and time, not one 
ever achieved any high renown or position. 

While McClellan was thus organizing his raw levies 
on the Potomac, the War Department at Richmond was 
demoralizing Johnston's seasoned soldiers at Manassas. 

Before the concentration of the Army of the Shenan- 
doah with the Army of the Potomac, it had been discus- 
sed between Generals Johnston and Beauregard whether 
the line of the Rappahannock would not be a better line 
than that of Manassas and the Potomac. 

A Federal column moving up the valley could cross 
the Blue Ridge at several passes — at Chester's Gap from 
Front Royal, or Brown's Gap to Madison court house, 
and would be two marches nearer Richmond than an 
army at Manassas Junction. And a movement to take 
up the line of the Rappahannock was .being discussed 
when McDowell precipitated the decision by selecting 
Bull Run for the line of battle. 

As the spring of 1862 advanced, it became clear that 
as soon as the roads would permit, McClellan must 
move. Gen. Johnston did not have a convinced opinion 
as to a Federal advance by land on the line of the Vir- 
ginian railroads. The command of the water absolutely 
held by the Federals, and the navigable rivers which 
pierced the side of Virginia, the Potomac, the Rappa- 
hannock, the York and the James, gave at a dozen 



THE LINES OF CENTREVILLE. 75 

points places for bases of operation which could not 
possibly escape the attention of McClellan. 

One day a group of young officers were in Gen. 
Johnston's Adjutant's office at Centre ville, and Col. 
George W. Lay, his aid-de-camp, was delivering a 
discourse on strategy. Lay had been Gen. Scott's 
military secretary and aid for years, and had probably 
as large a view of the science of war, and of this par- 
ticular war, as any man living. He had the map of 
Virginia before him, and was demonstrating to his circle 
of ardent and inquisitive auditors the folly and imprac- 
ticability of an attack on the lines of Centreville and an 
advance to Richmond by that route. The way to 
Richmond is this, said he, putting his finger on City 
Point, and Richmond can only be taken by an army 
operating south of the James. 

Gen. Johnston had entered the room without attracting 
the attention of the absorbed auditors or the speaker. 
He here broke in: "Col. Lay, don't you think it unad- 
visable to make such a discussion ; you cannot know 
who may be evesdropping." And that conversation 
ceased. 

But as the spring opened, Johnston apprehended that 
McClellan might march down on the north bank of the 
Potomac, pass his army rapidly across below Acquia 
creek, where he could move promptly to Fredericks- 
burg, and would be three days nearer Richmond than 
Johnston. 

Therefore, on March 9th, he withdrew from the lines 
at Centreville just as McClellan advanced to feel his 
force, and took position behind the Rappahannock. 



76 LIFE OF GEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

McClellan replied to this move by transporting his 
whole army by water to York River, when Fortress 
Monroe gave him a fortified base, and Hampton Roads 
brought his supplies to his very camps. 

The six positions selected by the Confederate admin- 
istration to be occupied in force so as to protect Virgmia 
from invasion, were Grafton, on the Baltimore & Ohio 
Railroad, west of Cumberland; Harper's Ferry to cover 
the Valley; Manassas Junction to protect the interior 
railroads; Acquia creek to cover the flank of Manassas; 
Yorktown and Norfolk. 

Johnston objected to the strategy which endeavored 
to defend positions, and the event justified his judgment. 
The secession of West Virginia carried off Grafton 
without a struggle. Patterson's move to Williamsport 
gave him check at Harper's Ferry, and he was forced 
out of that position. 

Now the movement of McClellan by the water 
route obliged the abandonment of the line of the 
Potomac, and no sooner had the design of the Federal 
General been developed, than it became clear that Nor- 
folk and Yorktown must be abandoned. 

An army on the peninsula, between the York and 
the James, is at the mercy of the power which controls 
the water. Cornwallis found it so. McClellan ought 
to have utilized his tremendous advantage instead of a 
laborious siege operation at Yorktown. He could have 
landed his arm}^ at West Point, forty miles from Rich- 
mond, or at City Point, eight miles from Petersburg, 
and from either place, with his communications abso- 



THE LINES OF CENTREVILLE. • ^7 

lutely iintrammeled, would have been free for a positive 
movement on the capital of his adversary. The Army 
of the Potomac had not got back to the Rappahannock 
before the appearance of McClellan on York river 
notified Johnston of his next move. He accordingly 
confronted McClellan at Yorktown, with the troops who 
had been observing him for the preceding six months 
on the line of the Potomac. 

But before this, an incident had occurred which was 
fraught with grave consequences to the Confederacy. 
Before the 20th of February, Gen. Johnston had been 
ordered to Richmond to confer with the President, and 
on his arrival on the forenoon of the 20th, he had a pro- 
longed conference with Mr. Davis and his cabinet at 
his office at what had been and is now the post-office and 
custom-house. The result of a discussion of several 
hours was that, without giving orders. Gen. Johnston 
understood that the arm}^ was to fall back as soon as 
practicable. 

The dicussion was of course strictly confidential, yet 
on going straight from the meeting to the Spottswood 
Hotel, only two squares off, he was asked by Col. Pender, 
of the Sixth North Carolina, just arrived in the city on 
his way to th<i army, if he, Johnston, had heard a 
report, which he, Pender, had found in the house on his 
arrival, that the cabinet had been discussing that day, 
the question of withdrawing the army from the line then 
occupied. 

Gen. Johnston accepted this rumor as proof positive of 
the indiscretion of some member of the cabinet, and never 



^8 I.tFE OF GEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

thereafter gave his confidence to the President nor those 
in authority over him. He insisted that if -his plans were 
communicated to anyone, they would immediatel}^ be 
made known to the Federal authorities, and thencefo^*- 
ward he steadfastly refused to take anyone into his 
confidence. 

But in this instance, which was the foundation for his 
mistrust, he seems to have acted on insufficient evidence. 

The fact that Col. Pender heard a rumor at the 
Spottswood Hotel that the cabinet had been in consulta- 
tion that day about a withdrawal from Manassas, did not 
prove in the slightest degree that any one in that con- 
ference had mentioned anything outside about the sub- 
ject matter of it. Two facts were notorious: Gen. 
Johnston had left the army and had come to Richmond. 
He had never done so since June, 1861. He had gone 
at once to a cabinet meeting, which was kept up for 
several hours. 

It took no great imagination to discern that the com- 
mander of the army had been sent for, for conference, 
and that conference could only refer to a withdrawal of 
the army. 

It would seem therefore that Gen. Johnston too hastily 
concluded that the indiscretion of the cabinet had 
exposed his councils, and it was extremely unfortunate 
that he should have come to this conclusion. 

He withdrew his army from before McClellan, with- 
out the knowledge of his superior officer, and Mr. Davis 
says he met some artillery actually in the suburbs of 
Richmond before he knew that the army was falling 
back. 



THE LINES OF CENTREVILLE. 79 

But behind it all was Johnston's sense of the cruel injus- 
tice which had been done him on the question of rank, 
and the absolute lack of confidence between himself 
and the President. He did not believe that Mr. Davis 
appreciated or understood at all the real conditions of the 
struggle. He believed that his large experience had 
qualified him far beyond the President to judge and 
decide as to proper measures and movements. He 
urged and insisted on certain views of policy. For 
instance, from Centreville he urged that his commissary 
be allowed to live on the country around and in front of 
his lines, because he said they will otherwise be ulti- 
mately lost. But supplies were collected along the 
railroad, hauled by his camps to Richmond, and the 
next week hauled back and issued to his troops. 

He remonstrated at this maladministration, and he had 
no patience with it. Taking into consideration the 
inexperience of every one connected with the staff, it is 
remarkable how well it did its work, and it is not just to 
criticise it for inefficiency. 

But Gen. Johnston had been Quartermaster General 
of the Army of the United States, a machine with the 
experience of ninety years, and the brightest intellects 
that had been applied to logistics at any time. 

It is not beyond the fact to say that the trained and 
educated staff of the Army of the United States has 
never had, and has not now, its equal in the world. In 
intelligence, in education, in force, and in energy, it is 
without a peer. 

It is the fashion to overestimate the great ability of 



So LIFE OF _ .. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

the German staff, and of Von Moltke and his school. 
But the soldiers trained at West Point, in brains, in 
acquirement in force, in capacity to do things, have 
never been equalled anywhere, and the first great trial 
of force this country is ever involved in will prove it 
again. 
\ Gen. Johnston had been accustomed to the smooth 
working of the great machine of which he had been 
chief, and he did not make just allowance for the diffi- 
culties in taking clerks, young lawyers, absolutely 
inexperienced young men, and putting them in charge 
of duties, where exact obedience is the highest obligation. 

The necessities of the situation compelled this, and 
the Confederate staff accomplished miracles. 

No men ever did more with less means than they did. 
But the inefficiency of the staff in January and February, 
1862, as the marching of the volunteers in July, 186 1, 
exasperated Gen. Johnston, and the incident with 
Pender only assisted to aggravate the general situation. 

As McClellan began to move on Johnston's lines at 
Yorktown in the most skillful and approved manner, 
and began to open his parallels of approach according 
to strictest rules of science, Johnston interested himself 
in committing McClellan to this method of operations. 

Every day's delay cost the invading army in money 
and men and means, and if McClellan could only be 
induced to dig his way to Richmond, it was supposed 
that, while it would gratify his scientific aspirations, it 
would not greatly incommode his adversaries. 

Yorktown is on the south side of York river, on the 



THE LINES OF CENTREVILLE. 8 1 

peninsula between the James and the York; at the end 
of the peninsula, the point between the Chesapeake 
and the James, is Fortress Monroe, a place heavily 
fortified and with deep water approaches. 

McClellan had landed about 100,000 effectives on the 
peninsula for the movement on Richmond. When 
Johnston assumed command, he had probably 53,000 
effectives. But Johnston knew the map of Virginia as 
well as any man who ever lived. He knew the naviga- 
ble waters penetrating her eastern side, and was perfectly 
acquainted with their depth and capacity. He knew 
before he went to the peninsula, that it was utterly 
untenable. The Union general had absolute control 
of the water. York was already in his hands. The 
Jam.es would be when he required it. 

The Confederate line, extending across the narrow 
neck of land between the York and the James, could 
be flanked whenever he chose to do so. He could 
occupy Gloucester Point on the north side of the York, 
land a proper force there, march to West Point abso- 
lutely secure from attack; or he could move up James 
river and seize a point west of the Chickahominy, and 
by either move, would have his army nearer Richmond 
than Johnston. 

Besides this, McDowell, with 38,000 effectives, was 
at Fredericksburg, eighty miles north of Richmond, as 
near that point as Johnston found the Confederate army. 
The first thing to be done then was . to withdraw and 
place his force in such a position as could meet an 
advance, either by the York or the James, or by both, as 



82 LIFE OF GEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

well as guard against McDoweH. This withdrawal 
was effected with promptness and skill. The Confed- 
erate rear guard covering Johnston's trains was fiercely 
assailed by the Union advance, and after a bloody fight 
on May 5, 1862, at Williamsburg, captured four hun- 
dred unwounded prisoners, ten colors and twelve field 
pieces. 

The Confederates slept on the field of battle, and 
though in some accounts on the Union side this affair is 
claimed as a great Union victory, the fact is that the 
Confederates captured and carried off the trophies of 
battle, slept on the field and marched off the next 
morning at their leisure and convenience, and did not 
have a shot fired at them for weeks. 

The Chickahominy is a stream flowing from a point 
north of Richmond in a southeasterly direction, its 
nearest point three miles from the suburb of Richmond. 
For the first part of its course it is an insignificant 
bra7ich, in the Virginian vernacular, a small stream 
everywhere fordable. But it drains an extensive water- 
shed of hilly, rolling country, and a hard rain raises 
the stream and floods its banks for hundreds of 3^ards 
on each side with a prodigious quantity of water. The 
stream will rise ten feet in two hours. On occasions, 
and what was at noon a pretty, sluggish brook, by sun- 
down will become a turbid torrent, more than a mile 
wide, unapproachable by any ordinary means of trans- 
portation. 

Numerous bridges and fords along the upper part of 
the Chickahominy afford eas}' access across it. In its 



THE LINES OF CENTREVILLE. 83 

ordinary stages it opposed no great obstacle to move- 
ments from either side, but after a hard rain up the 
the country, it became a serious consideration in moving 
or feeding or fighting an army. 

Johnston withdrew from the peninsula, and took posi- 
tion on the right or southern and western side of the 
Chickahominy. He placed a brigade at Hanover court- 
house, fifteen miles north of Richmond, to keep a watch 
over McDowell, and another at Gordonsville, to protect 
his railroad communications with the Valley of Virginia, 
and the army under Jackson there being collected. 

He urged upon President Davis and Gen. Lee, who 
was acting as the President's military counsellor, the 
paramount importance — first, of drawing McClellan as 
far from his base as possible. This he had accom- 
plished by making him follow to the Chickahominy. 
Second, of concentrating all the troops of the Con- 
federacy into one army of overwhelming numbers, and 
with that falling on McClellan and crushing him. Noth- 
ing was to be left to chance. But he insisted that 
Charleston, Wilmington, Savannah and Mobile should 
be stripped of troops, and that McClellan's destruction 
should be made certain, absolutely, mathematically 
certain, as could have been done had Johnston's urgent 
appeal been consented to. 

But neither Mr. Davis nor Gen. Lee were willing to 
give up the ports, their only access to the world, and 
through which alone could cotton be shipped to pur- 
chase ships, arms and supplies, and the articles pur- 
chased brought into the Confederacy. 



84 LIFE OF GEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

Johnston insisted that if he did' not crush McClellan 
the ports would go anyhow; if he did crush his adver- 
sary the ports would promptly fall back into the hands 
of the victors. 

It was the old difference about defending lines and 
positions, and protecting the countr}^ from invasion. 
Johnston insisted that that was antiquated war. It had 
been practicable under the old conditions, but that with 
modern arms and m.ovements and ideas, when prompt- 
ness is the first requisite, when celerity is one of the 
highest military virtues, when an arm}^ accomplishes 
as much with its legs as with its hands, other methods 
of applying the principles of war must be devised. 

The medieval knight, with two hundred weight of 
iron on him, and another on his horse, mounted on an 
immense cart horse, of heavy draft, to carry such a bur- 
den, armed with a sixteen-foot pole and an iron-bound 
maul, called lance, and battle axe, would have stood no 
chance with one of Stuart's horsemen. A light cavalry- 
man of the First Virginia would have ridden around 
King Arthur or Sir Launcelot half a dozen times, while 
the knight was bracing himself up for action, and the 
Chicopee sabre would have searched out the joints under 
his chin, or his arm, or above his sword belt, and would 
have shucked him like an oyster before he could get his 
lance in rest. 

The Spaniards, said Johnston, are the only people 
who have attempted to defend fortified lines and posi- 
tions covering a country in modern war. 

We must use all our resources. We must make up n 



THE LINES OF CENTREVILLE. 85 

celerity what we lack in numbers. Increase the velocity, 
and the inferior weight will have the greater momentum. 
This was the argument, and his statement of the case. 
But Mr. Davis and Gen. Lee were unable to agree with 
him. 

Some brigades were brought from Norfolk and North 
Carolina, and by the latter part of May his force was 
increased to 74,000 effectives. McClellan moved up 
and occupied the opposite side of the Chickahominy. 
There were two things to be prepared for by him. One 
was to reach out and take McDowell by the hand at 
Fredericksburg, so that when he was ready to strike, he 
might have McDowell's force crushing in Johnston's 
left. Another and equally important matter was that the 
army in the valley under Jackson should be prevented 
from reinforcing Johnston. 

He was first to secure McDowell's reinforcement for 
himself, and second to prevent Johnston from having 
Jackson. 

He exactly failed in both, and failed because 
Johnston's precise knowledge of the art of war was 
larger than his. 

Johnston knew the valley. He had studied it when 
he was at Harper's Ferry in June, 1861 . He appreciated 
the value of the parallel mountain chains of the Blue 
Ridge, the Massanutton, and the North Mountain, 
which might be used as curtains, behind which great 
movements could be concealed, or as fortifications to 
protect the flanks of an advancing or retreating army. 

If the valley could be utilized for disarranging the 



S6 LIFE OF GEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

Federal plan of campaign, Johnston would be afforded 
an opportunity of crushing McClellan before McDowell 
could reach him. 

Jackson had about 7,000 men, and was soon rein- 
forced by Ewell with 8,000 more. 

With his own force he attacked and drove back 
Milroy at McDowell on May 8 ; reinforced by Ewell he 
attacked and routed Banks at Strasburg and Winches- 
ter, May 24; he threatened to cross the Potomac and 
take Washington in rear May 26th and 27th. 

In the meantime, while these events were transpiring, 
McClellan was not idle. He sent Fitz John Porter 
on his extreme right to open communications with 
McDowell. Porter attacked and defeated Branch at 
Hanover court-house, and took possession of the bridges 
below Hanover Junction where the railroads from Fred- 
ericksburg and the Valley of Virginia intersect each other 
and cross the North Anna, the Middle river and the South 
Anna over six high, long wooden bridges. There Porter 
found McDowell's scouts, and the way was therefore 
open. Why he did not burn the bridges he does not 
explain, but it is inferred that he proposed to keep them 
for the use of McDowell. In fact he did preserve them 
for the use of Jackson. He reported that he had 
destroyed all of the bridges by the hands of Major 
Lawrence William's Sixth United States Cavalry. But 
he is mistaken; some, not all, were burned, and the way 
to the valley was left intact. 

On the 22d of May, McClellan had crossed Heint- 
zleman's and Key's corps to the west side of the 



THE LINES OB^ CENTREVILLE. 87 

Chickahominy, leaving Sumner, Franklin and Porter's 
corps on the east or north side. Heintzleman and Keys 
immediately began to intrench, advancing as they dug. 
They came on step by step, forming four lines of earth- 
works of a division each, and made themselves reason- 
ably secure. Bottom's bridge is over the stream only a 
short distance below the point where the York river 
railroad crosses it. 

The other three corps of the Army of the Potomac, 
Johnston hoped and expected, would be separated from 
the two corps by a dangerous and treacherous river, 
and by a constantly increasing interval which would 
give him the opportunity to beat one wing before the 
other could come to his assistance. 

The attack by Porter on Branch at Hanover court- 
house, seemed to give the waited-for opportunity, 
especially as Branch reported on the 27th that McDowell 
was in march to grasp Porter's extended hand. It was 
therefore of pressing importance that McClellan should be 
attacked before his disconnected wings could be united, 
and before this great reinforcement could reach him. 
On the 28th, Johnston made arrangements to attack 
McClellan's right wing, by passing A. P. Hill over the 
Meadow bridge for that purpose. G. W. Smith and 
A. P. Hill were to strike the extreme right, Magruder 
and Hughes crossing the Chickahominy at the New 
Bridge were to interpose between the Federal left wing 
and the Chickahomin}^, while Longstreet and D. H. Hill 
were to attack the two advanced corps, thus cut off from 
their supports. During the night of the 29th, Gen. 



88 LIFE OF GEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

Stuart broui^ht information that McDowell had moved 
back to Fredericksburg. In point of fact, Jackson's 
demonstradon that day and the day before on the 
Potomac at Williamsport, Sheppardstown and Harper's 
Ferry, had panicked the authorides at Washington, and 
they had pulled McDowell back to the defence of the 
capital. Neither Jackson's movements, nor the reason 
for McDowell's, were however known at Johnston's 
headquarters on the night of May 29. 

It was only certain that there was no immediate stress 
to attack, so as to be ahead of McDowell, and reverting 
to the mathemadcs of battle, to which Johnston's mind 
went with the precision of an operation of nature, he 
determined that there was no use fighting McClellan's 
whole army, when he had two-fifths of it cut off and 
detached and separated to his hand. So A. P. Hill was 
recalled, and recrossed the Chickahominy without hav- 
ing been discovered. 

On May 30, Johnston struck out a terrific blow with 
his right. He precipitated twenty-three of his twenty- 
seven brigades upon Heintzleman and Keys. Longstreet 
was in main charge, owing to the locadon of his troops, 
although G. W. Smith was endded to it on account of * 
his rank. 

The other four brigades were observing the river, 
from the New bridge up to Meadow bridge. 

After the disposition for the attack had been made, 
the orders of battle copied out and distributed, and the 
Major-Generals instructed in personal interviews with 
the General commanding, it came on to rain, in that 



THE LINES OF CENTREVILLE. 89 

phenomenal manner, in which it sometimes does rain in 
Virginia. 

The placid Chickahominy spread itself out from a-half 
to two miles wide, and every little rivulet and spring 
branch which contributed to it assumed embarrassing 
proportions. 

The swamps became bogs, the streams serious impedi- 
ments, for no man can tell the depth of water which 
spreads over a hundred yards of meadow. 

The attack was intended to have been made early in 
the day. The troops did not actually get into collision 
until 3 P. M. The atmosphere was in such a peculiar 
condition that although Gen. Johnston was only three 
miles off, on a hill, waiting to hear Longstreet's attack, 
the first musketry he or the staff heard was at 4.30 P. 
M., when there had been a terrific battle of infantry 
raging for an hour and a-half. 

The onslaught of Longstreet drove back the first line, 
the second line, the third line, all the lines of the 
Federal army. They were routed, rolled up, disorgan- 
ized. At nightfall came Sumner, over the flood and the 
swinging bridge, to the assistance of his .comrades. 
But he was too late, the battle was irretrievably lost 
before he got up. 

x\bout 7 o'clock P. M., that is, on May 30, about 
sundown. Gen. Johnston naively records, that he 
received a slight wound in the right shoulder from 
a musket ball, and a few moments after was unhorsed 
by a heavy fragment of shell which struck his breast. 
Now this is an uncommon incident. 



90 LIFE OF GEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

No great soldier that I can recall ever got struck by 
a musket ball, and a few minutes after was knocked off 
his horse by a fragment of shell. Colonels often meet 
with such casualties. Its their business to be with the 
line of fire. Brigadier-Generals sometimes get hit in 
this way, Major-Generals rarely, but Commanding- 
Generals never before. 

The responsibilities of rank are well defined. The 
larger the responsibility the more valuable the life that 
bears it becomes. If a thousand lives depend on the 
officer, his life is a thousand times as valuable as that 
of any one of the men in line. 

It is the duty of inferior officers to lead their men, of 
superiors to keep their heads cool, and to invigorate and 
strengthen the people under them by the consciousness 
of being directed and moved by a higher intelligence; 
therefore, it has got to be an axim, that the General in 
command must not go under fire. 

Napoleon is said to have done it at the Bridge of 
Areola, but he was then young and inexperienced. He 
ought to have had fifty captains or twenty colonels who 
would have led that charge. 

Gen. Lee certainly attempted to do it at Spottsylvania, 
when his lines wer-e carried with a rush, and Grant was 
pouring Hancock's corps through the gap on him. He 
headed the Texans then, for unless he then and there 
saved the battle, his life was of no value to his army, 
for that would have been gone. 

But the chivalric instincts of those veteran heroes 
corrected that false move. '*Go back," said they, **go 



THE LINES OF CENTREVILLE. 9I 

back, we'll attend to this," and a private in the ranks, 
seizing his horse by the bridle, led back the commander- 
in-chief of the army submissively, obeying the order of 
the men in the ranks. 

At the battle of Seven Pines there was not the same 
experience. It was really the first close and bloody 
fight of the war, and Gen. Johnston had no business 
being in a place where a piece of a shell knocked him 
off his horse, a few moments after, being struck by a 
musket ball. He had no right to be within musket range. 

But it must be borne in mind, that he was handling 
the hope of the Confederacy in its struggle with the 
supreme effort of the Federal side ; success was life and 
failure was death; and by his constant presence with 
the troops, he gave confidence and encouragement to 
men he had already come to value as the most dashing, 
as they were the most enduring of soldiers. Johnston 
was carried from the field, and G. W. Smith, the rank- 
ing Major-General, assumed command that night and 
until noon, May 31, when Gen. Lee was assigned to 
command the army. 

When Johnston was wounded, the fighting was over 
for that day. The next day, Sunday, the Confederates 
gathered three hundred and fifty prisoners, six thousand 
seven hundred muskets and rifles as good as new, a 
garison flag and four regimental colors, with a great 
quantity of ordnance commissary, quartermaster and 
medical stores and tents. 

The Chickahominy was high, and the two parts of 
the Federal army separated by it, and Johnston at Rich- 



92 LIFE OF GEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

mend fretted because the attack was not pushed. The 
Confederates had thirteen brigades, some of which had 
lost tremendously, but they had beaten, routed and 
demoralized two Federal corps. 

Sumner's corps, which had crossed to their assistance, 
was six miles off at Fair Oaks. And the Confederates 
could have defeated Sumner before Heintzleman could 
get to him, and then have used up Heintzleman and 
.Keys at their pleasure. 

But the loss of the commander-in-chief in battle 
disarranged everything. Plans that had been thought 
out for days and nights, movements that had been 
worked out by measurements of time and distances, all 
the parts of that most exquisitely constructed machine, 
an army, which are in entire and perfect control of the 
general, must be taken up anew by his successors. As 
a general thing, the adjutant-general of the command is 
better qualified to take charge of an army in battle when 
the commander-in-chief is lost, than any subordinate 
general, no matter how well qualified. G. W. Smith 
was a soldier of the highest accomplishments. His 
natural ability was exceeded by no one on either side, 
but the twenty hours in which he was in supreme com- 
mand gave him no chance to take hold of his weapon 
and wield it as he could have wielded it. If Johnston 
had not fallen on the 31st of May, Sumner would have 
been destroyed, and both Heintzleman and Keys would 
have been captured. Holmes and Ripley brought up 
eight thousand men on June ist, and with this reinforce- 
ment to the Confederates, McClellan would never have 
changed his base. 



THE LINES OF CENTREVILLE. 93 ' 

This is speculation; but Johnston had arranged the 
campaign, had placed the troops, had accomplished 
everything he had undertaken, and it was his plan to 
keep McClellan divided, and to destroy him in detail. 
It can fairly be inferred that he would have succeeded. 
But Johnston's chaper of Virginia history was closed. 
He never afterward commanded troops in Virginia . His 
Army of the Potomac became the Army of Northern 
Virginia under Lee, and Johnston did not report for duty 
until November 12, 1862. 

This battle, called by the Federals Fair Oaks, and 
by the Confederates Seven Pines, was one of the closest, 
most hotly contested, and bloody of the war. On the 
Federal side were the Second Army Corps, Brigadier- 
General Sumner ; Third Army Corps, Brigadier-General 
Heintzleman, and Fourth Army Corps, Brigadier-General 
Keys, with an aggregate present for duty of 51,543. 
Johnston's whole army showed, on May 21, present 
for duty 53,688. The three divisions actually in battle, 
Longstreet, D. H. Hill and G. W. Smith, contained 
an aggregate of 35,559. '^^^ Union troops actually 
engaged on June ist, was about 14,000. 

The Confederates were about 8,300. In the two 
days fighting of May 31st and June ist, the Federal 
loss was 5,031, and the Confederate loss 6,134. 

Anderson's North Carolina Brigade lost 740 out of 
2,065. The Sixth South Carolina, out of 521 taken 
into action, left 269 on the ground. The Twenty- 
Seventh Georgia, out of 392, lost 145, and out of the 
color guard of the Fifth South Carolina of eleven men, 
ten were shot down. 



94 LIFE OF GEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 



O 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE ARMY OF THE SOUTHWEST. 

N November 24th, 1862, Johnston received orders 
assigning him to the command of the depart- 
ments of Gen. Bragg, Lieut.-Gen. E. Kirby Smith, and 
Lieut.-Gen. Pemberton. Bragg's army had just returned 
from his Kentucky campaign, and wsls at Murfreesboro, 
in observation of the army of Gen. Rosecrans near 
Nashville. Pemberton had garrisons at Vicksburg and 
Port Hudson, and an active army of twenty-three 
thousand men on the Tallahatchie, w^atching Grant 
with forty-three thousand men at Holly Springs. 

Lieut.-Gen. Holmes had about fifty-five thousand 
men at Little Rock, on the west side of the Mississippi. 
Johnston proposed to Randolph, the Confederate Secre- 
tary of War, that Holmes should be ordered across the 
Mississippi to unite with Pemberton, that he, Johnston, 
with this combination of seventy-eight thousand men, 
would fall on Grant and extinguish him, and then uniting 
with Bragg they would move on Rosecrans and over- 
whelm him. 

Mr. Randolph showed Johnston an order which he 
had prepared, anticipating his application, and directing 
the exact movement that he had just suggested ; but at 
the same time he showed him an order by the President 
countermanding that by the Secretary of War. 

In a few days Randolph resigned, whether on account 



THE ARMY OF THE SOUTHWEST. 95 

of this incident I do not know, but Johnston went to the 
Southwest without that firm support that a commanding 
officer ought to have in the high councils of his superiors. 

Owing to railroad accidents and delays, Johnston did 
not reach Chattanooga, which had been designated for 
his headquarters until December 4. 

In a few weeks President Davis visited the armies in 
person and had personal interviews with Johnston, Bragg 
and Pemberton. He advised that Johnston should rein- 
force Pemberton from Bragg, Johnson insisting that 
Pemberton's reinforcements must be drawn from Holmes 
in the trans-Mississippi ; that the battle for the redemp- 
tion of Missouri and the security of Arkansas and the 
retention of the Mississippi must first be fought against 
Grant, and then against Rosecrans, and that Holmes 
must be brought across the river and united with Pem- 
berton. It was the old difference of opinion, the original 
divergence between the President and Commander-in- 
chief and the head of the second army of the Confed- 
eracy. One was for holding on to lines, and protecting 
territory, the other. was for abandoning territory, con- 
centrating on interior lines, destroying his enemy, in 
detail, and thus eventually securing the country, and 
positions abandoned, to accomplish this result. Mr. 
Davis finding Johnston impracticable, ordered a division 
from Bragg to Pemberton, and the order transferring 
Stevenson's division from Murfreesboro to Jackson with 
McCown's brigade was actually issued in the name of 
the President, and not in the name of the general com- 
manding. This was discourteous— was temper. It 



96 LIFE OF GEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

could only indicate a condition of things which must 
inevitably lead to disaster. Johnston ought to have 
been made to issue the orders required of him, or he 
ought to have been relieved. No order ought to have 
gone over his head to any subordinate. 

The President met the General Assembly of Missis- 
sippi about 19th December, w^here it had been convened 
by Gov. Pettus, for the purpose of calling out the 
whole military force of the State to support Pemberton. 
Johnston found the fortifications at Vicksburg, and as 
he saw by a map of them those at Port Hudson, so large 
that they each required twelve thousand five hundred 
men to hold them. 

Grant was between the two armies of Pemberton and 
Bragg, with a force superior to either of them. There 
was danger that he would destroy them in detail, and 
then capture Vicksburg. Finding himself unable to 
carry out the strategy which he believed was the only 
safe policy, and being incapable of converting the 
President to his views, Gen. Johnston requested to be 
relieved from the responsibility for two armies so widely 
separated as Pemberton's and Bragg's. The President 
declined to gratify him, for the reason that the field of 
operation was so far from the headquarters of military 
affairs, it was necessary to have an officer of sufficient 
rank, to supervise, and direct, near to the scene of 
operations. 

As soon as Rosecrans heard of the detachment of 
troops from Bragg to Pemberton, he moved out to attack 
the former. This he did on December 31, 1862, and 



THE ARMY OF THE SOUTHWEST. 97 

the battle was continued during the ist, 2d and 3d of 
January. Bragg, on the next day, withdrew across 
Duck river. 

At this battle of Murfreesboro, Bragg reports his 
force at thirty thousand infantry and artillery and five 
thousand cavalry, and his loss at ten thousand, including 
twelve hundred severely wounded and three hundred 
sick left in Murfreesboro. 

He captured *'over thirty pieces of artillery, six 
thousand prisoners, six thousand small arms, nine colors, 
ambulances and other valuable property," and destroyed 
eight hundred loaded wagons. 

Rosecrans reports that he had forty-three thousand 
four hundred infantry, of whom nine thousand two 
hundred and sixty-seven were killed and wounded, and 
three thousand four hundred and fifty were made 
prisoners, a total loss of twelve thousand seven hundred 
and seventeen. 

January and February were occupied in directing 
Pemberton in resisting a movement against Vicksburg 
by way of transports up the Yazoo; in organizing a 
body of cavalry and sending it into Tennessee under 
Van Dorn to occupy territory there, so as to enable Gen. 
Bragg to feed his army from that quarter, and in dis- 
patching Wheeler with his cavalry to break the Federal 
communications northward from Nashville. 

On March 9th, Johnston was ordered to relieve 
Bragg, to take command of his army, and direct him to 
report to Richmond. 

On reaching Tullahoma, on the iSth, he assumed 



98 LIFE OF GEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

command of the army there, but did not communicate 
to Bragg the order directing him to report to the war 
department, because Mrs. Bragg was very ill and her 
death momentarily expected. 

In a few days Johnston became so seriously ill as to 
incapacitate him for duty, and Bragg resumed command 
of the Army of Tennessee. 

The Mississippi river was controlled by the Federals 
from its mouth to Port Hudson, and from Vicksburg 
north. That part of the river between these two forti- 
fied positions was open to the Confederates, and was the 
route by which communication was had with the trans- 
Mississippi. 

About the middle of March some Federal gun boats 
ran by the batteries at Port Hudson, and thus the value 
of the two fortified points on the river was greatly 
irnpaired, if not entirely destroyed. 

Grant, on the western side of the Mississippi, was 
employed in cutting a canal, so as to enable transports 
and gunboats to get by the batteries of Vicksburg. 

By the middle of April this enterprise was abandoned, 
and Grant marched* his whole army to a point on the 
west bank below Vicksburg and above Port Hudson. 
His war vessels and transports thea^arn by Vicksburg in 
the night. 

Grant promptly crossed to the east side and began at 
once a series of movements and maneuvers, which, for 
vigor, skill, genius and courage, have hardly ever been 
equalled, and certainly never excelled. He moved 
promptly in the rear of Vicksburg, isolated it from all 



THE ARMY OF THE SOUTHWEST. 99 

reinforcements, and in due course reduced and cap- 
tured it. 

On May 9, Gen. Johnston was ordered to '^proceed 
at once to Mississippi, and take chief command of the 
forces there, giving to those in the field, as far as prac- 
ticable, the encouragement and benefit of your personal 
direction." He replied: **Your dispatch of this morn- 
ing received. I shall go immediately, although unfit for 
field service." He left in the next train for Jackson, 
where he arrived on the evening of May 13. He imme- 
diately telegraphed to the Secretary of War: **I 
arrived this evening, finding the enemy in force between 
this place and General Pemberton, cutting off the com- 
munication. I am too late,'' Johnston found in Mis- 
sissippi, subject to his orders, and which could be con- 
centrated, combined and organized into an army, about 
25,000 men of all arms. They were at Canton, at 
Jackson, and at other places. All supplies of ammuni- 
tion and material were shut up in Vicksburg and Port 
Hudson. Johnston was obliged, not only to organize, 
but to provide transportation and supplies of all sorts for 
an army. On June 8th he reports that **the artillery is 
not yet equipped." 

In the meantime Grant had invested Vicksburg, and 
protected himself with intrenchments from attack by 
Johnston. The latter informed the War Department 
that there was no hope of saving Vicksburg, that 
the only thing practical that could be done was to save 
Pemberton's army. But it would require the whole of 
Bragg's Arm}^ of Tennessee to be given him, to enable 



lOO LIFE OF GEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

him to beat Grant, and such a* movement of Bragg's 
army would be equivalent to giving up Tennessee. The 
government must take the responsibility, and be the 
judge of what was best. 

It was the old question of abandoning territory to 
combine on the enemy, and the old question was 
answered in the old way. Vicksburg was lost, and 
with it Pemberton's army. 



THE VICKSBURG CAMPAIGN. lOI 



G 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE VICKSBURG CAMPAIGN. 

EN. Johnston was directly charged by President 
Davis with being responsible for the disaster at 
Vicksburg and the loss of Pemberton's army. It is 
proper, therefore, to examine the operations of the cam- 
paign in Mississippi, and to make clear what did occur, 
what did not occur, and what were the moving causes 
for events there. The control of the Mississippi river, 
early in the war, became a prime object in the strategy 
of the Federal generals. This obtained by their arms, 
the Confederates would be divided, and the vast territory 
of Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas and Missouri, rich in 
supplies of material and men, would be cut off, and 
could be overcome and reduced in detail. 

The possession of the river was thus of incalculable 
importance to the Confederates. They raised, organ- 
ized and established an army of 55,000 men under 
Lietenant-General Holmes in the Trans-Mississippi 
Department, with headquarters at Little Rock, the capi- 
tal of Arkansas, and an army in Louisiana under Major- 
General Dick Taylor. 

They fortified the positions at VicKsburg and Port 
Hudson on the east bank of the Mississippi, about four 
hundred miles apart by the river, and one hundred miles 
by the roads on the east side. The course of the Mis- 
sissippi is the most tortuous in the world. Its current 
flows in every direction — south, east and west. 



I02 LIFE OF GEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

Where its immense flood ha* cut away a bank of 
alluvion until it- reaches a rocky bluff, it turns short 
round on itself, and flows back in the direction from 
which it comes, thus making loops, miles in extent, but 
the sides of which are only a few miles apart. Vicks- 
burg is situated on a high bluff at the end of one of 
these loops. 

In the Northeast section of the State of Mississippi 
rises the Big Black River, which flows in a Southwest- 
erly course until it empties into the Mississippi, just 
above Grand Gulf, probably seventy miles below Vicks- 
burg by land. 

The Yazoo flows from the Northeast, and enters the 
Mississippi nine miles north of Vicksburg. 

Lieutenant-General John C. Pemberton commanded 
the Confederate Army of Mississippi, and the posts at 
Port Hudson and Vicksburg. He had six thousand 
men at Port Hudson, under Major-General Gardner, 
and about twenty-six thousand under his direct com- 
mand, of whom at least six thousand were required to 
garrison Vicksburg. 

It was conceded by the Confederate officers that 
twelve thousand men to each place would be necessary 
to hold the fortifications at Port Hudson and Vicksburg. 
Those lines were too extensive for the purpose of their 
creation. They ought to have been more contracted, 
so as to concentrate their fire to hold the river. 

The city of Jackson is fifty miles east of Vicksburg, 
connected with it by a railroad, which was extended 
beyond the Mississippi to Shreveport, in the interior of 
Louisiana. 



THE VICKSBURG CAMPAIGN. IO3 

The Federals held the river north of Vicksburg and 
south of Port Hudson. The Confederates used the 
intervening stretch of water to communicate v^ith their 
Trans-Mississippi Department. 

In the campaign of 1862, Major-General Ulysses S. 
Grant had acquired reputation by his reduction of the 
forts on the Tennessee, and the force and vigor of his 
operations. To him was assigned the task of opening the 
Mississippi, and the boundless resources of his omnipo- 
tent government were placed at his disposal. 

On October 25th he was assigned to command of the 
Department of the Tennessee. His force, in round 
numbers, consisted of 48,500 effectives. But they were 
scattered from Cairo in Illinois to Corinth in Mississippi. 

On the 2d of November, 1862, he moved for the 
reduction of Vicksburg, and the opening of the Missis- 
sippi, from Jackson in Tennessee with 30,000 men. 
Pemberton, with about 20,000 men, was fortified at the 
Tallahatchie river, and occupied Holly Springs and 
Grand Junction on the Mississippi Central railroad. 

He pressed down on Pemberton on the Tallahatchie, 
turned his position and forced him to fall back. In 
accordance, as Grant says in his memoir,* with a 
venerable axiom m war, he had established his depot 
of supplies at Holly Springs in his rear, to which every- 
thing necessary for his army was hauled by railroad 
from the North, and from \^hich he was fed and 
furnished. 

Grant makes this fling at the *' axiom of war," which 

*Grant's Memoirs, Vol. I, page 424. 



I04 LIFE OF GEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

**he said up to this time had been accepted, that large 
bodies of troops must operate from a base of supplies, 
which they always covered and guarded in all forward 
movements." 

An invading army was, therefore, always tied to its 
base. But there was no such *^ axiom;" no great 
soldier had ever acted on it; Alexander, Caesar, Han- 
nibal and Napoleon had always cut loose from fixed 
bases of supplies, and made their arms feed their 
mouths. And Grant himself was at once forced by the 
inexorable logic of facts to ignore the ** axiom" and take 
care of himself. 

Van Dorn came in behind him and burnt up his 
*'base" at Holly Springs. If Grant had then acted as a 
scientific soldier, according to the rules, should have 
acted, he would have fallen back and changed his base, 
and waited until communications could be restored with 
the source of his supplies. 

Unfortunately for the Confederates he turned out to 
be not that sort of a soldier, but without a moment's 
hesitation, sent out into the country, seized all the 
korses, mules, wagons and provisions he could find, and 
made himself independent and comfortable. 

And he did this in a regular, orderly, civilized way. 
He took what he was obliged to take, by the hands of 
officers acting under orders. But he did not let loose 
upon an unarmed population of women and children, 
surrounded by a servile population of an inferior and half 
savage race, hords of marauders, robbers and mur- 
derers, and call them * 'bummers"; to devastate, burn, 



THE VICKSBURG CAMPAIGN. IO5 

rape, murder and destroy; to disgrace his name through 
future generations, and dishonor the uniform he wore 
and the flag under which he fought. 

He bore a great soul. He was a large man. He 
was a rough soldier. He struck hard blows and did 
rough things, but war is no holiday spectacle, nor parlor 
amusement. But Grant never in his whole career as 
soldier in the Union army, ever did one thing for which 
his posterity will blush, or which his countrymen must 
palliate or excuse. 

He foraged in Mississippi, as he had the right to do, 
and he foraged like a soldier and a gentleman, as he 
was, in a legal, decent, orderly way. 

But he was forced to turn back and try for Vicksburg 
in some other way. A great popular demand had 
arisen on his government, that the Mississippi should be 
opened by an expedition down the stream. That the 
great West should *^hew her way to the Gulf with her 
own sword," as John Logan had said. Consequently, 
Memphis was made the starting point for a new 
movement. 

Sherman was sent by water from that place down 
the Mississippi and up the Yazoo, to get into the rear of 
Vicksburg, but he was driven back by the fortifications 
with which Pemberton had protected his flank. 

Farragut with a fleet held the river below Port Hud- 
son, but was stopped by Gardner's guns. 

Porter with another fleet was prevented from descend- 
ing by Vicksburg, and the Confederates had free 
communication with their Trans-Mississippi Department 
and the armies of Dick Taylor and Holmes there. 



I06 LIFE OF GEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

Grant took command at Memphis himself, and forth- 
with transferred his army to MUKken's Bend, the loop 
just opposite Vicksburg, and on which it is situated. 
On the northern side of the loop is Young's Point, and 
from there across to the southern side is only a mile. 
The Mississippi has before this changed its course, for 
Lake Providence, extending along the west side, is evi- 
dently the ancient channel of the Father of Waters. 
It is curious what insignificant incidents influence great 
events. 

President Lincoln once in his life had gone down the 
river in a flat-boat, and as the boat floated on the slug- 
gish current for days and days, an active-minded and 
imaginative youth would think many thoughts and 
dream many dreams. 

It is- not to be supposed that Lincoln's dreams ever 
called back pictures of Ponce de Leon or De Soto or of 
Old Hickory, for it is doubtful if he ever had heard of 
the two Spaniards, and he only knew the name of 
Andrew Jackson, and the battle of New Orleans. The 
opening of the waterway of the West — their way to the 
sea — inflamed the imaginations of their young men, and 
of no one more than the President himself. 

Some one suggested that a canal cut across the neck 
of Milliken's Bend, only a mile across, would turn the 
whole force of the mighty river into it and leave Vicks- 
burg high and dry, while the way to the sea would be 
open forever. 

Gen. Williams had cut a canal ten or twelve feet wide 
and as many deep across the neck of Milliken's Bend, 



THE VICKSBURG CAMPAIGN. IO7 

and everybody and the President thought that this would 
induce the river to change its course, but it did not. 

Grant, therefore, directed McClernand, who reached 
Young's Point before him, to extend and enlarge this 
work, and McClernand, by the last of January, 1863, 
had 4,000 men at work digging as hard as they could. 

But it became certain that the river zvould not change 
its course to save the Union, to make a way for the West 
to the sea, or to gratify the President of the United States. 
Admiral Porter's fleet was w^aiting to come down. 
Admiral Farragut's fleet was waiting to come up. 
Grant was digging and ditching across Millikin's Bend, 
and the whole West was yelling for their '* way to the 
sea." 

In May, 1863, as we have seen, Johnston was ordered 
to Jackson to take command of Pemberton and his Army 
of the Mississippi, of Bragg and his Army of Ten- 
nessee, and of Dabney and his Army of the Gulf. He 
wanted Holmes' army at Little Rock, of 55,000, ferried 
across the Mississippi and concentrated with Pemberton, 
and fall on Grant, displayed along the railroad lead- 
ing from Holly Springs north. And he insisted 
upon Holmes instead of Bragg, because he said 
Holmes could be brought up so much sooner 
and easier than Bragg, from Tullahoma in Tennessee. 
The troops west of the Mississippi ought, according to 
Johnston's ideas and his urgent representations, to be 
transferred to the east of the Mississippi, where they 
could be utilized with Pemberton, Bragg and Maury, 
and not be cut off in detail, separated by distance and 



I08 LIFE OF GEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

the great river, from supporting armies. Grant, tired of 
the attempt to turn the river, urged the navy to run by 
the guns on the bluffs. 

On the 14th of March Farragut ran the blockade at 
Port Hudson with the Hartford and the Albatross, and 
Porter responded by passing a fleet of ironclads, gun- 
boats and transports by Vicksburg in the night. 

The river then was in possession of the Federal fleet. 
The Confederate communication with the Trans-Missis- 
sippi was broken, and Port Hudson and Vicksbnrg both 
ceased to be of value to them. 

As soon as Johnston was advised that Holmes and 
Dick Taylor were cut off he saw that Gardner and Pem- 
berton must soon share their fate unless promptly re- 
lieved. Grant let go Milliken's Bend, leaving only a 
garrison there, and rapidly crossed the Mississippi at 
Bruinsburg, below the mouth of the Big Black. 

His movements thenceforward were dashing and bril- 
liant. He never lost a moment. He cut loose from 
bases of supplies, only taking with him ammunition, and 
pushed for Pemberton's rear. Johnston had about 
20,000 at Jackson. With Pemberton's 25,000, and 
Holmes' 55,000, he could have overwhelmed Grant. 

Inasmuch as Holmes was now cut off, he applied to 
the War Department at Richmond for Bragg. The 
Secretary of War replied that Bragg was under John- 
ston's command, and that he must do what he thought 
was necessary. 

Johnston answered to that, that the coming of Bragg 
to Mississippi meant the evacuation of Tennessee; that 



THE VICKSBURG CAMPAIGN. IO9 

the choice between Mississippi and Tennessee was a 
political question, not a military one, and was for the 
civil government to decide, not for the general com- 
manding armies in the field. ' 

And then arose discussion and recrimination between 
President Davis and Gen. Johnston, which ought not to 
have occurred. 

But Bragg did not move, and Grant did. Johnston 
ordered Pemberton to evacuate Vicksburg and march to 
the northeast, while he would leave Jackson and march 
to the northwest. Thus these two armies would be 
united, and they could fall on Grant, who had cut loose 
from the Mississippi, and his fleet and was marching on 
Jackson. 

This order was dated May 14. It was sent in tripli- 
cate. The bearer of one copy was a Southerner, so 
ardent that he had been expelled from Memphis by 
General Hurlbut on account of his vociferous denuncia- 
tion of the Yankees. His expulsion was a trick to get 
a spy into Confederate headquarters. It was one fre- 
quently practiced, and, as far as I know, always with 
success. Beauregard expelled one in October, 1862, 
from Manasssa, into McClellan's adjutant's office in 
Washington, and the movement on Mason's Hill was 
prosecuted largely to have the benefit of her signals 
from Washington. 

The rebel expelled by Hurlburt, as a martyr and a 
zealous partisan, readily got credit in Jackson, and was 
dispatched in charge of one copy of the order to Pem- 
berton. He rode straight to McPherson's lines, deliv- 



no LIFE OF GEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

ered it to McPherson, to hand it to Grant, when it was 
given back to the courier to go on to Pemberton. It 
did not reach him until May i6th, after Grant had 
attacked and beaten him at Baker's Creek. His answer 
was sent back to Johnston b}^ the same hand, was 
carried to Grant, and then forwarded to Johnston. 

This incident was unknown to General Johnston when 
he wrote his narrative in 1872-74. 

Pemberton did not receive Johnston's order in time to 
obey it. 

On May 15th, Johnston again wrote Pemberton that the 
only way they could unite was by the latter moving 
promptly to Clinton, to the northwest of Jackson. And 
Johnston marched his two brigades sixteen or eighteen 
miles toward the northwest to make junction with Pem- 
berton. 

On the night of the i6th, he heard from Pemberton 
that he considered it better to cut Grant off from his 
base at Bruinsburg, and had attempted to do so when 
Grant prevented it by the attack at Baker's creek. 

It was then too late to get out. Grant was driving 
Pemberton back to Vicksburg, and the rescue of the 
Confederate army there became utterly hopeless. Grant 
invested Vicksburg and constructed a line of fortifica- 
tions in his rear to protect him from Johnston's attack, 
which were impregnable to any force the latter could 
throw against him. 

It is just to say that Johnston's view as to the with- 
drawal of Holmes and Dick Taylor to the east of the 
Mississippi was without doubt the sound view, and if it 



THE VICKSBURG CAMPAIGN. Ill 

had prevailed, would probably have materially changed 
the course of history. But it is equally true that when 
the President and Secretary of War forced on Johnston 
the responsibility of the evacuation of Tennessee, by the 
withdrawal of Bragg, and the concentration of all the 
troops of his command against Grant, it was Johnston's 
duty to have accepted the responsibility and have 
decided the military question, and to have left the 
political one to take care of itself. 



112 LIFE OF GEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 



CHAPTER X. 

THE GEORGIA CAMPAIGN. 

pROM the fall of Vicksburg, July 4, 1863, during 
-■- the remainder of the summer, Johnston was 
engaged supervising the defense of Mobile, where 
Maury was in command, and in organizing the debris of 
the Army of the Mississippi. 

In the latter part of September, Bragg fought Rose- 
crans at Chicamauga and beat him. 

The Federal General was rapidly reinforced from 
Grant's army in Mississippi, and Grant transferred to 
command it. He drove Bragg from Missionary Ridge, 
and on December i8th, Johnston was ordered to transfer 
the command of the Department of Mississippi and 
East Louisiana to Lieutenant-General Polk, and repair 
to Dalton and assume that of the Army of Tennessee. 
He arrived at Dalton on the 26th, and assumed com- 
mand on the 27th of December. 

On the iSth of December, President Davis had 
visited the troops at Demopolis, and on the 20th, those 
at Enterprise. While there he transferred General 
Hardee and two brigades to the Army of Tennessee. 

On December 20th, the returns of the army showed 
effectives, not quite 36,000; the number present, 
about 43,000. 

General Bragg estimated Grant's force at Chatta- 
nooga, Bridgeport and Shreveport at 80,000. Grant 
reports them at 65,000. 



THE GEORGIA CAMPAIGN. II3 

The hard service of the preceding campaign had so 
reduced the animals of the artillery and transportation 
that they were unfit for service. The railroad was 
unable to supply them with long forage, and they were 
sent into the Valley of the Etowah to recuperate. 

Man}^ of the men were barefooted, and there was a 
deficiency in the infantry of six thousand small arms. 

On February nth, Lieutenant-General Polk reported 
that Sherman was advancing with 35,000 men along the 
railroad toward Mobile. On the 17th, the President 
directed that Lieutenant-General Hardee be sent to Polk 
with three divisions, which was promptly done. 

Grant at once made a forward movement on Dalton. 
Sherman turned back, and Hardee returned to the Army 
of Tennessee. 

On March 3d, Grant, having been commissioned 
Lieutenant-General, was ordered to Washington to take 
command of all the Armies of the United States. 

This left Sherman and Johnston facing each other; 
Sherman with 80,000 fighting men, Johnston with 
40,000. Sherman was at Chattanooga, and Johnson at 
Dalton — one-fourth of the way between Chattanooga 
and Atlanta. 

Atlanta was the centre at which the railroads from 
Southern Georgia met, and from which they led to the 
North. Georgia had got to be the source from which 
the supplies for the Army of Northern Virginia were 
largely drawn. 

The Confederacy had been divided by the fall of 
Vicksburg and the opening of the Mississippi. 



114 iAFE OF GEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

The possession of Atlanta by the Federals would give 
them Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi. They already 
had Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri, Arkansas, Louisi- 
ana and Texas, and if Atlanta was lost, nine States 
would have been conquered and reduced, and only the 
two Carolinas and Virginia left to defend the cause of 
the Confederacy. Therefore, the possession of Atl-anta 
was a question of life and death. 

The country from Chattanooga to Atlanta is moun- 
tainous, traversed by mountain ranges running north 
and south, with numerous ridges across the valleys and 
bold streams affording positions for defense. 

Since Johnston had assumed command of the Army 
of Tennessee, he had caused careful surveys to be made 
of the country behind him, and had selected positions 
for defense to be fortified and prepared. 

On February 22, 1864, Sherman moved on John- 
ston's lines. 

Gen. Bragg, who had been called to Richmond as 
general military adviser of the President, if not General- 
in-chief, proposed to Johnston to reinforce him up to 
75,000 men, with which he was to move into Tennessee 
and force Sherman, or, as he said. Grant, to fight him. 
Johnston replied that if he was to make that move, he 
must have the troops promised at once, or it would be 
too late. They were not supplied and Sherman moved. 

But the administration was not satisfied. It insisted 
that Johnston should assume the offensive, "with an 
army 16,000 weaker than that proposed by Gen. 
Bragg," as Johnston says. 



THE GEORGIA CAMPAIGN. II5 

The return of May i, 1864, showed the effective 
strength of the Army of Tennessee to be 42,856. 

Sherman had in the meantime been reinforced by pro- 
bably 30,000 veterans. Polk with all his infantrv was 
ordered to Johnston. 

Sherman moved on. His tactics were simple. He 
moved in three columns. The center engaged Johnston 
in his fortified position. Either flanking column pushed 
on by him as it found opportunity. 

Now one man cannot fight three men of equal 
courage. No matter how he defends himself against 
his assailant in front, the one on his right or his left 
is bound to get behind him and strike him a fatal blow. 
This was Grant's move, from the Rapidan to the James. 
This was Sherman's from Dalton to Atlanta. 

Johnston occupied every mountain pass, every ridge 
of hills, every ford, and fought his enemy whenever he 
attacked. He always repulsed him in front, but when 
his flank was turned, as turned it must be, he fell back 
in the night to the next position, with the morale of his 
people increased, and their spirit for the next fight 
heightened. 

From the 12th of May, back to Atlanta, on July 17th, 
1864, Johnston conducted this masterly retrograde with 
the loss of four field pieces, disabled and unable to be 
carried off, in seventy-four days' fighting an enemy of 
more than double his numbers. 

Grant's army, that had fought at Missionary ridge, 
was then estimated at 80,000 men. It had been in- 
creased by two corps, one division and probably 12,000 
reciuits. 



Il6 JFE OF GEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

On June ist, it contained, according to the returns, 
112,819. On September ist, it mustered 81,758. It 
actually lost in killed, wounded and missing 31,687. 
Johnston's total loss was 9,972. 

These are the figures as shown by the official returns 
of Sherman and Johnston. 

The Confederate, confronted by overwhelming num- 
bers, seems to have taken Wellington's retreat in Spain 
as his model. His object was to withdraw his enemy 
as far from his base and into a hostile countr}?- as possi- 
ble, reducing his numbers and his morale by reiterated 
blows, until he had oroduced something like an eauality 
of forces. 

Peach Tree Creek runs just north of Atlanta. It 
is passable by two fords at some distance apart. John- 
ston's plan was to strike Sherman as he was passing 
these fords, hoping to crush one of his columns before the 
other could aid him, and in case of disaster, he had the 
fortified position of Atlanta, which he had been preparing 
since June, for just such a contingency. 

No one can now say that his whole campaign was not 
conducted on the best principles and with the highest 
generalship. 

It was unjust in the extreme, to criticise his policy of 
retreat and fight, of fight and retreat. Lee in Virginia 
had been pursuing precisely the same plan since May, 
and had been forced back from the Rapidan to the 
James with no greater disparity of forces ; and his move- 
ment met the entire sympathy and approval of the 
people and of the administration. 



THE GEORGIA CAMPAIGN. II7 

But for some inscrutable reason, by some logic even 
now unaccountable, there was a demand that Johnston 
should fight. He fought every day for seventy-four days. 
That he should stop retreating. He did stop until his 
army was nearly surrounded. That he should make a 
forward movement. That he should move around his 
adversary and throw himself on his communications. 

Just at the point when he was about to declare decisive 
battle on his own terms, he was ignominously relieved 
and Hood placed in command. 

His removal was a shock to the military sense of the 
Confederacy. Lee — subordinate, patient, respectful, as 
he ever was — remonstrated in writing to the Secretary 
of War. He spoke openly, as he never spoke before or 
since, **That if General Johnston was not a soldier, 
America had never produced one. That if he was not 
competent to command that army, the Confederacy had 
no one who was competent." And he was firm in 
urging that Johnson be reinstated to command. He 
was relieved S^temeer 17, 1864. 

Hood cut loose from Atlanta, carried out the pro- 
gramme directed by Bragg to Johnston in the preceding 
Spring, moved into Tennessee and lost his army. 

On February 22, 1865, Johnston was directed by 
Adjutant-General Cooper to report by telegraph to Lee, 
at Petersburg, for orders. On the same day Lee 
ordered him to * ^Assume command of the Army of 
Tennessee and all troops in South Carolina, Georgia 
and Florida; assign General Beauregard to duty under 
you as you may select. Concentrate all available forces 
and drive back Sherman." 



Il8 LIFE OF GEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

Johnston had retired to Lineolnton, North Carolina, 
and reported that **It was too late to concentrate troops 
to drive back Sherman." 

Sherman was then in South Carolina, moving north 
to unite with Grant. 

The Army of Tennessee, utterly broken up, by the 
Tennessee Campaign, was coming into North Carolina 
by regiments and skeleton brigades, and there was 
hardly a vestige of the organization of an army left. 
But Johnston did what was possible. He drew together 
the fragments from Charleston, Wilmington, and wher- 
ever they could be laid hold on, and concentrated them 
near Goldsboro, North Carolina, to delay Sherman and 
prevent his junction with Grant; while he hoped that 
Lee might disengage himself from Richmond, join him, 
and they together might defeat Sherman. 



THE FALL OF ATLANTA AND SHERMAN S RAID. II9 



CHAPTER XL 

THE FALL OF ATLANTA AND SHERMAN's RAID. 

WHEN Johnston turned over the command of the 
army to Hood, he communicated to him his 
plan then ready to be executed, and Hood faithfully 
tried to carry it out. 

He attacked Sherman as he was crossing Peach Tree 
creek, but the removal of Johnston had taken the spring 
out of his army, and he was badly defeated and driven 
back. He at once withdrew to a position about twenty 
miles southeast of Atlanta, on the railroad, about Love- 
joy's station. Sherman pursued him, but soon returned 
and occupied Atlanta, perfecting his communications 
with the North and preparing for future movements. 

In the latter part of September, President Davis visited 
Hood at his camp, and made a speech to the soldiers. 
He denounced Johnston for his Fabian policy ; told the 
men that it was to be changed to the aggressive. 

He said the Yankee army must either retreat or 
starve, and that Sherman's retreat would be more dis- 
astrous than that of Napoleon's from Moscow. That 
Forrest was already on the railroad in Tennessee, and 
that they should soon be there. Sherman was so well 
served that a spy actually heard this speech and reported 
it the following morning to him. He telegraphed it 
North. 

It gave him the whole policy of his adversary's cam- 



I20 LIFE OF GEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

paign, and enabled him to prepare for it. He sent 
Schofield and Thomas back to Franklin and Nashville 
to collect troops and be ready for Hood. 

In a few days Hood began to move around Sherman 
and go North. He attacked Altoona, a fortified post on 
the railroad, and was repulsed with heavy loss. Sher- 
man followed him, until it became perfectly certain that 
he was off for Tennessee, as promised in Mr. Davis' 
speech at Lovejoy's, when he returned to Atlanta. 

Savannah is three hundred miles from Atlanta. The 
country between is rich, well cultivated, had never seen 
an army, and was full of provisions. Absolutely every 
man in Georgia, from sixteen to fifty, was with the army. 
A march through such a country would be a military 
promenade. Hood would have been an obstacle, but 
Hood had gone and left the gate open. 

The fall of Atlanta was naturally the subject of great 
rejoicing and much vainglory on the successful side. 
It meant the downfall of the Confederacy, and it para- 
lyzed all hopes of success in the hearts of the great mass 
of the people. Sherman and the Federal authorities had 
a perfect conception of the importance of the event, and 
lost no time in improving their advantage. 

The first thing Sherman did upon occupying Atlanta 
and getting his railroad communication with the North 
satisfactorily established, was to drive out every human 
being, young or old, male or female, from the city, who 
did not belong to his army. Pregnant women, women 
in child-bed, babies at the breast, sick women, puling 
infants, were thrust from their homes and sent off, against 



THE FALL OF ATLANTA AND SHERMAN S RAID. 121 

the protests of the mayor of Atlanta, and the burning 
remonstrance of Hood, who commanded the Confed- 
erate Army. 

Sherman justified his act as an act of war, and said 
**he was not dealing with the humanity of the question." 

The same in sentiment, but more brutal even in expres- 
sion, was the language of another great Federal General, 
as related by Busch in his ** Bismarck and the Franco- 
Prussian War." On the advance of the Prussians into 
France, General Sheridan, with two of his staff accom- 
panied the general headquarters. 

When the advance guard of the invading army entered 
the village of Bazeilles, it was fired on from the houses 
and the gardens, by citizens or by Franc tireurs, the 
French guerrillas. The village was 'orthwith burned 
and razed to the ground. 

The incident caused great criticism among the Prus- 
sians, and the action of the Prussian General who 
ordered it much commented on. Here is Busch's 
account of the views of the American general: *'On 
September 8th," says he, **we had a great dinner, at 
which the hereditary Grand Duke of Mecklenburg- 
Schwerin, and the three Americans, were present. 

**They spoke of the different reports about the incidents 
at Bazeilles. The minister (Bismarck) said it could not 
be tolerated, that peasants should join in fighting to 
defend places. They were not in uniform, and there- 
fore when they throw away their muskets unnoticed, 
they cannot be known as combatants. The chances 
ought to be equal for both sides. Abeken thought the 



122 LIFE OF GEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

fate of Bazeilles too hard, and "that the war ought to be 
carried on more humanely. 

^^Sheridan, to whom McLean had explained the case, 
took a different view. He thought the severest treat- 
ment of a population during a war, quite justified on 
political grounds, 'The main thing, in true strategy.' 
What he said amounted to this: 'First, deal as hard 
blows at the enemy's soldiers as possible, and then 
cause so much suffering to the inhabitants of the country 
that they will long for peace and press their government 
to make it. Nothing should be left to the people but eyes 
to lament the war.^ Rathei heartless, I thought to 
myself, but perhaps worth consideration."* 

No such sentiment has been uttered by a commanding 
General since Attila or Alva, even if they did, which 
may be doubted. 

Every writer on international war, every authority 
who has laid down the principles and practices on, and 
with which modern civilized war ought and must be 
carried on, condemns maltreatment of non-combatants, 
and forbids plunder or the appropriation of private 
property, unless necessary for the support of the army, 
and then to be paid for. 

Scott and Taylor in Mexico procured provisions by 
regular details under responsible officers, and paid for 
them in hard money. 

The government of the United States, bound to range 
itself on the side of civilization, employed Dr. Francis 
Lieber, the greatest publicist in America, to prepare a 

*Busch, page 130. 



THE FALL OF ATLANTA AND SHERMAN S RAID. I23 

code for the government of the American army in war. 
This code was published by authority, and was the law 
which was law for Gen. Sherman as well as for the 
meanest bummer who flanked his march and disgraced 
his flag. 

Section 20 of this code is: "Private property, unless 
forfeited by crimes, or by offences of the owner against 
the safety of the army, or the dignity of the United 
States, and after due conviction of the owner by court- 
martial, can be seized only by way of military necessity, 
for the support or the benefit of the army or of the 
United States." 

Section 24 is: *'A11 wanton violence committed 
against persons in the invaded country ; all destruction 
of property not commanded by the authorized officers ; 
all robbery; all pillage or sacking, even after taking a 
place by main force; all rape, wounding, maiming, or 
killing of such inhabitants, are prohibited under penalty 
of death, or such other severe punishment as may seem 
adequate for the gravity of the offence." 

This code does not appear to be entirely in accord 
with the sentiment of Sheridan: ''That the inhabitants 
should be left only eyes to weep." But in September, 
1863, it was the law which bound the Federal army, 
which every officer and every soldier had sworn to obey. 
Sherman cleaned out his army of all ineffectives: Sick, 
disabled, convalescents, everybody who could not march 
was sent North by the railroad. By the last of Novem- 
ber he was ready for his march to the sea. He had 
60,000 men, seasoned and toughened by march, bivouac 



124 LIFE OF GEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTOlN. 

and battle for a year. The victors at Port Huason, 
Grand Gulf, Vicksburg, Missio*nary Ridge and the 
pursuers of Johnston for seventy odd days, always 
advancing and -never giving ground. They were in 
perfect health, in the highest morale, and must have 
been under the best discipline. With them he took 
sixty-five guns, generally in four gun batteries, twenty- 
five hundred six-mule wagons, and twenty-five hundred 
two-horse ambulances. The wagons carried about 
twenty-five hundred pounds each. The roads were 
good, wood, water and Dro visions plenty, and the 
weather superb. 

His general order for the march conforms to the 
requirements of Lieber's code. Straggling was strictly 
prohibited, and plundering denounced; lest the straggler 
or plunderer in the enem'^'^'s country might meet a 
sudden death. 

The wagons were always to carry ten day's rations 
and forage for the army. And they always did. So 
there never was excuse for plunder or pillage. The 
troops were to march by four roads, keeping in touch 
with each other all the time, so that they could be 
rapidly concentrated at any point when necessary. 

The columns ought to make fifteen miles a day, and 
therefore twenty days would bring them to the sea at 
Savannah. 

The march began from Atlanta on November 15th, 
and for the first day or two proceeded in an orderly and 
military manner. The trains were properly guarded. 
Foraging parties were kept out on the flanks in charge 



THE FALL OF ATLANTA AND SHERMAN'S RAID. I25 

of quartermasters and commissaries, and provisions 
were collected in a decent, civilized way. But by the 
end of two days it became evident that there were no 
white people left in the country, but women and children, 
and that the byroads, paths and fields were as absolutely 
safe as in Central New York. And then began the 
saturnalia of the **bummers." 

The Federal army contained regiments from many 
Northern States. In the ranks were men whose ances- 
tors had died at Bunker Hill or fallen at Buena Vista. 
They were the sons of God-fearing, country-loving 
fathers and mothers, and were as high-minded, chival- 
rous, generous soldiers as ever carried musket or drew 
sabre. But by their sides, in no inconsiderable propor- 
tion, were the mercenaries, who had enlisted solely 
from selfish considerations. They knew no flag; they 
had no country; they never felt a pulsation of patriotism, 
nor a throb of honest enthusiasm. The commercial 
spirit, which understood that it would pay better to give 
a thousand dollars for a substitute, when a man was 
making a thousand dollars a day, by a contract for 
bogus boots, or shoddy coats, or useless hats, than to risk 
life or limb for the Union, had filled the army with the 
scum of the world. The market price of the human 
material rose as the competition grew hotter. 

The proletariat of the old world, the jails and peni- 
tiaries of the new, were bought up by commercial 
dealers, who sold them at a profit. 

Clubs were formed for mutual assurance against the 
perils of patriotism and the loss of jobs. 



126 LIFE OF GEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

A hundred neighbors, all interested in making money 
out of the war for the Union, a'nd all profiting by it, 
would form an association for protection, that if one Was 
drawn for the war, the whole would supply a substitute 
by assessment on all the members. 

It was the same arrangement that has since blossomed 
out as graveyard insurance, or mutual benefit associa- 
tion. The consequence was, that as there was a ready 
market for substitutes, there was an ample supply. 
The Bunker Hill Mutual x\ssurance Society, and Perfect 
Substitute x\ssociation, would be formed on the basis that 
each member would put in so much capital, which was 
at once invested in substitutes, and that there should 
be no further call on the stockholders until drafts had 
been made on members sufficient to exhaust the paid-in 
capital of substitutes. 

The consequence of this market in blood and bones 
was, that side by side with the high-spirited New Eng- 
land bo}-, whose grandfather had stood by Warren, or 
the Illinois farmer's son, whose ancestor had died at 
Tippecanoe or Monterey, was a collection of the basest, 
vilest drears ever collected bv the dredge of avarice from 
the bottom of civilization. 

In all the scenes that followed Sherman, in all the 
ixruesome memories of that fearful march, in all the 
lurid pictures of crime and suffering, the only light is 
that of some bright young "Yankee," always American, 
who interposes — sometimes officer against private soldier, 
sometimes private soldier against officer — to shelter 
women, old men and children against the * 'bummers," 



THE FALL OF ATLANTA AND SHERMAN S RAID. I 27 

the outpourings of the jails and penitentiaries of the 
North, and the dregs of the mob in the Continental cities. 

No tongue can tell, no pen can paint the horrors of 
that thirty days' march of Sherman from Atlanta to 
Savannah. He left Atlanta November 15, he reached 
Savannah December 15 ; and in that thirty days was 
packed as much of human suffering as ever was experi- 
enced in the same period in all the history of all time. 

The spirit of the chiefs inspires the followers. I have 
already shown what feeling Sheridan had. 

After Sherman had reached the sea he received this 

order from "H. W. Halleck, Major-General, Chief of 

Staff": 

Headquarters of the Army, , ) 

Washington, Dec. 18, 1863. f 

^ ^' ■^'" Should you capture Charleston, I hope that 

by so7ne accident the place may be destroyed, and if a 

little salt should be sown upon its site, it may prevent 

the growth of future crops of nullification and secession." 

On December 24, 1864, Sherman answers this deli- 
cate intimation to commit murder, arson and robbery, 
and pretend it is by accident, as follows : 

''I will bear in mind your hint as to Charleston, and 
do not think that 'salt' will be necessary. When I 
move, the Fifteenth Corps will be on the right of the 
right wing, and their position will naturally bring them 
into Charleston first, and if you have watched the 
history of that corps, you will have remarked that they 
generally do their zvork pretty ivell ; the truth is, the 
whole army is burning with an insatiable desire to wreak 
vengeance upon South Carolina. I almost tremble for her 

fate, but FEEL THAT SHE DESERVES ALL THAT SEEMS 

IN STORE FOR HER. ''* ^ * / look upou Coltintbia as quite 
as bad as Charleston, and I doubt if we shall spare the 
public bicildings there, as we did at Milledgeville, " 



128 LIFE OF GEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

The Federal army marched by four roads, covering a 
front of forty miles. It moved at the rate of fifteen 
mile a day. 

A solid wall of smoke by day forty miles wide, 
and from the horizon to the zenith, gave notice to the 
women and children of the fate that was moving on 
them. At early dawn the black vail showed the march 
of the bummers. All day long they watched it coming 
from the Northwest, like the storm-cloud of destruction. 
All night it was lit up by forked tongues of flame light- 
ing the lurid blackness. The next morning it reached 
them. Terror borne on the air, fleet as the furies, 
spread out ahead, and murder, arson, rapine, enveloped 
them. 

Who can describe the agonies of mothers for their 
daug"hters, for their babies, for their old fathers and 
young boys? 

This crime was organized and regulated with intelli- 
gence and method. Every morning details were sent in 
advance and on the flanks. Justice required that the 
men who remained in the ranks should share in the 
advantages of these details. Of course energy, enter- 
prise and courage made itself felt at once among the 
**bummers," and the more daring and boldest forthwith 
supplied themselves with good horses and kept well 
mounted by that means. There were many thorough- 
bred horses in Southern Georgia, and the stables of the 
rich planters were stocked with the best blood of Vir- 
ginia and South Carolina. 

The bummers spread themselves over the whole country 



THE FALL OF ATLANTA AND SHERMAN's RAID. 129 

for miles beyond either flank of the marching columns, 
and they robbed everything. The negroes were no 
more safe than the whites. The especial objects of their 
search were watches, jewelry and women's trinkets. 
The old galley slave, fresh from Toulou, and the 
French hulks, with the brand on his shoulder and the 
limp of the shackles on his leg, found a wide field for 
the exercise of those talents which had brought him to 
grief m his own country. 

Between the thieves and their accomplices, there was 
organized a rude system of division, according to a law 
of prize. 

All valuables — gold, silver, jewels, watches, &c., 
were to be brought in at night and a fair division made 
of them among all parties. 

The captain was entitled to so much. The colonel to 
his share. The general to his portion. 

In May, 1865, a brigadier-General commanding a 
cavalry brigade under Major-General Kilpatrick, said 
that Kilpatrick had a bushel of watches, trinkets, 
numerous finger-rings and earrings; of course in such 
a band there was no such thing as honor, and the 
division made was in no way equal; but the system 
worked. Under it everybody was robbed, and everyone 
among the robbers got a share. Sherman set out to 
leave the inhabitants ** nothing but eyes to weep." He 
left nothing else in his track, but one thing, which he 
forgot. He left them memories to retain the imoressions 
and the feelings he created. 

General Sherman, in his memoirs, makes merry over 



130 LIFE OF GEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

the humors of the "bummers," and says that President 
Lincoln, **Honest01d Abe," inthe last interview he ever 
had w^ith him, in April, 1865, ^^ City Point, was highly 
diverted and greatly interested in the ''bummers." 
The massacre at Glencoe was the one single blot upon 
the honor and fame of William of Orange, the deliverer 
of England. But the picture drawn by Macaulay of 
that tragedy is of a holiday fete, beside the tragic scenes 
spread over hundreds of miles for months on the line 
and flank of Sherman's march. One or two drawn by 
the actors in them, will suffice in this panorama of 
horror. 

In the fall of 1864, Judge H , of Macon, Georgia, 

left his home at Macon and went to his plantation in 
Jefferson county, Georgia, twelve miles from a railroad, 
in the Ogeechee swamp. His wife writes this account 
of experiences, that justice to history and to truth 
requires should be put on record: 

"About the 24th of November, we heard that Sher- 
man's Army were in posession of Milledgeville, and were 
on their way to Savannah, burning and destroying 
everything in their course, and our house being directly 
on the wagon road from Milledgeville to Savannah, we 
of course, expected them to lay everthing in ashes that 
they could find. 

"A few days afterward we could hear of Kilpatrick's 
cavalry all around us, and see the heaven's illuminated 
at night with the glare of burning gin houses and other 
buildings. We could hear of houses being pillaged, 
and old men being beaten nearly to death, to be 



THE FALL OF ATLANTA AND SHERMAN S RAID. I3I 

made to tell where their money and treasures were con- 
cealed. All these tales of horror we heard, and deeply- 
sympathized with the sufferers, expecting every hour to 
see the cavalry ride up and treat us in the same manner. 
But to our great joy they passed us, coming no nearer 
than six miles, and when they had passed, we hoped 
the main army would do the same. We thought it best, 
however, to take such precaution to conceal our stock, 
so as to prevent them being found, if they should make 
us a visit, and stockades were built in the dense swamp 
of the Ogeechee, impenetrable, as we thought, to any 
one not acquainted with the surroundings. 

**For several days, squads of Wheeler's cavalry would 
pass, and tell us where Sherman's army was, and of the 
depredations they were committing, and warn us to pre- 
pare for the worst, as they were showing no mercy; 
and on Sunday, November 28, we heard that the 
destroyers were encamped just above our upper planta- 
tion about four miles from our home. That night the 
heavens looked as if they were on fire, from the glare 
of hundreds of burning houses, and early Monday 
morning a negro man came from the upper plantation 
and told us they were crossing the river, and that some 
of them were in Louisville, about two miles off ; also 
that they were searching the houses, breaking in the 
stores and setting fire to them, and killing all the stock 
they could find. (Stores, in Southern vernacular, means 
stores and supplies of provisions, clothing, &c., provid- 
ed for a plantation. Stock, means live stock.) 

*'He proposed to hide a number of hams we had hang- 



132 LIFE OF GEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

ing up in the smoke-house, where we had been making 
salt by leaching the dirt from Ihe earthen floor, and we 
gladly accepted the proposition. He accordingly dug 
down about two feet, laid plank at the bottom of the 
excavation, laid the hams on them, covering them up 
securely and putting syrup barrels over the place. 

**I told the cook to prepare us enough food to last us 
several days, as we would not be able to have an3^thing 
cooked while the Yankees were on the place. We also 
gave the negroes one month's rations, thinking that they 
would be better able to keep them than we should. 

**That morning Mrs. S — — , the overseer's wife, and 
myself had gone into the woods and buried my valuables. 

''Judge H — — was in the swamp at the time having 
the stock put in the stockade, and turning the fattening 
hogs out in the swamp, thinking they would be less 
liable to be killed running at large. He had his w^atch 
with him. 

''When he came back to the house I got his watch 

from him and gave it to Mrs. S , with the request 

that she would hide it in some safe place. 

"About noon, just as we were ready to sit down to 
dinner, a little negro boy came running in half breath- 
less from fright. 

" 'Marster,' he cried, 'dey's comin down de lane.' 

" 'Who is coming,' asked his master? 

" 'Two white men's wid blue coats on,' the little 
negro answered. 

"W^e left the dinincr-room and looked out. Instead of 
'two white men with blue coats,' we saw about a dozen, 



THE FALL OF ATLANTA AND SHERMAN's RAID. I33 

talking to the negroes at the negro houses. My 
husband went out, and two of them came up and spoke 
very pohtely to him, asking if he could let them have 
something to eat. They said they wanted some flour, 
and were willing to pay for what they got. They 
looked around the pantry and smoke-house, and one of 
them said, *you had better have those provisions carried 
into your house, some of our men are not very particular 
to ask for what they want,' while another offered to take 
down some pieces of meat that were hanging in the 
smoke-house and bring them into the house for me. 

** I began to think they were not so bad after all, but I 
soon had reason to change my mind. I had hardly got 
the meat inside of the house before hundreds of the 
*Blue Coats' could be seen everywhere. One man 
came up to me and asked if I could tell him how long it 
was since the last *Rebs' passed the place. I made no 
reply to him, whereupon he cursed me and demanded to 
know why I did not answer his question. 

** * Don't you know the Southern women know no 
such persons as '^Rebs," ' another soldier observed. 

*** Then,' said the first, 'will you please tell me, 
madam, how long since the last Confederate soldier 
passed here? ' 

** I told him General Wheeler's men had been passing 
for several days, and that some of them had passed that 
morning. * I suppose,' I added, * that they are waiting 
for you down in the swamp," and I hoped in my heart 
they would give them a warm reception. 

** In our fright we had forgotten our dinner, and 



134 ^IF-E OF GEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

when we went back into the dining-room everything 
was gone, not a morsel to ^t was left. The dishes 
were all gone, and even the table-cloth was taken. 
They, no doubt, were very much delighted to find a 
nice dinner already prepared for them — a large turkey, 
a nice ham and various other things nicely cooked. We 
were too much frightened to feel hungry then. 

*'As we were outside the picket line, we were not 
molested during the night. The army regulations were 
very strict, requiring all to be in camp before dark, and 
we were not able to get a guard. That night, however, 
about nine o'clock, we heard a slight knocking on the 
window. ' Who is that? ' asked my husband. *A 
friend,' was the answer. * I am a Confederate soldier.' 
Upon opening the door, a young Confederate officer 
came in. He said his name was Carter, and that his 
command being nearby, he had come into Louisville to 
see his wife, who was visiting relatives there. She was 
a sister of General Ranse Wright. That morning, 
before daylight, he left Louisville, hearing that the 
Yankees were in the neighborhood, and knowing that 
he would be taken prisoner if he were found. His 
friends had provided him with provisions to last several 
days. He had been hiding in the woods all day, and 
he came to ask us if we could direct him to a safe place 
in which he could conceal himself until the enemy 
passed by. 

* 'Judge H directed him to a place in which he 

thought he might hide without much danger of being 
discovered. The young man accordingly provided 



THE FAI.T. OF ATLANTA AND SHERMAN 's RAID. I35 

himself with some water and set out, having avoided 
letting the overseer, or any of the negroes, know of 
his visit. 

**Early Tuesday morning the Yankees began to come 
in from ever}^ quarter. One could not look in any 
direction without seeing them. They searched every 
place. One of them loudly declared that he had heard 
we had a Confederate officer concealed in the house, 
and that he was determined to find him. 

^*The intruders thereupon looked into closets, trunks, 
boxes, and every conceivable place. One man came in 
and said: *I know you have got a Rebel officer hidden 
away in here somewhere. He was seen to come in here 
last night.' He accordingly began to search the bureau 
drawers, and even opened the clock and looked into 
that. 'Sir, 'said I, half laughingly, just as he was 
about leaving the room, 'There is one place in the room 
you have not looked into.' 'Where is it?' he asked. I 
pointed to a small pill box on the mantelpiece, and asked 
him if the Conlederate soldier might not be hidden in 
that. He turned away with a curse upon his lips on all 
the Rebel women. 

"At noon some of the men insisted that my husband 
should go down to the swamp with them, to show them 
where some syrup was hidden. He called a negro man 
who had assisted us in hiding it, and told him to go, but 
the Yankees insisted that he should go himself. He 
told them he was old and feeble, and not able to walk so 
far. One of them thereupon went and brought a mule 
and put him on it, and three of them started with him 



136 LIFE OF GEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

to the swamp. I felt very uneasy about him, but was 
assured by some of the soldiers* that no harm would be 
done to him. 

'* While my husband was absent, the destroyers set fire 
to the gin-house, in which were stored over two hundred 
bales of cotton and several bales of kersey we had 
hidden between the bales of cotton. The granary, in 
which were several hundred bushels of wheat, was also 
set on fire. The negroes went out and begged for the 
cotton, saying that it was to make their winter clothes. 
The cruel destroyers refused to let the negroes have a 
single piece. They told them they knew it was to make 
clothes for the *Rebs.' 

'*One man, who had been particularly insulting, came 
up to me and laughed harshly. *Well, madam,' said 
he, sneeringly, *how do you like the looks of our little 
fire. We have seen a great many such, within the last 
few weeks.' 

*'I had grown desperate, and I told him *I didn't care. 
I was thankful that not a lock of that cotton would ever 
feed a Yankee factory or clothe a Yankee soldier's back.' 
**He turned with an oath, and left me, but after a few 
minutes came back, having discovered that my house 
was in the city of Macon, and that I had heard nothing 
from there for some time, and told me, with a chuckle, 
that the army had passed through Macon, had sacked it 
and then burned it to the ground. 

**A rough looking western man was standing by, and 
he interrupted him. 'Madam,' said he, 'have you 
friends in Macon?' I told him I had a home and a 



THE FAI.L OF ATLANTA AND SHERMAN's RAID. I37 

brother there. He then turned to the miscreant and 
looked him squarely in the face. ' Why,' he demanded, 
'do you lie to this lady? You know very well we did 
not touch Macon, but passed it by. God knows she will 
have enough to bear before this army leaves here, with- 
out being made the target of lies.' 

*' *I am glad you have a home outside Sherman's 
track,' he continued, addressing me, 'for Heaven knows 
you will need it before man}^ days pass. You will have 
nothing left here.' 

''Just then I saw my husband coming up on a bare- 
back mule, with a Yankee soldier on each side holding 
him on. He was brought up to the piazza, lifted from 
the mule and brought into the house. They took him 
into a small room, and I followed. He turned to me 
and requested me to give the men his watch. 

" 'Why?' I asked, 'they have no business with your 
watch!' 

" 'Give it to them,' he repeated, with a gasp, 'and let 
them go. I am almost dead.' 

"Mrs. S , was standing by, and I told her to get 

the watch. She, without thinking, asked me if I meant 

Judge H 's watch, and I answered yes. Of course 

the Yankees inferred from her remark that she knew 
where other valuables were concealed, and they made 
her yield up everything. I got my husband to his room 
as soon as possible, and found he was very faint, as I 
thought, from fatigue. Imagine my horror, therefore, 
when he had recovered sufficiently to talk, to hear that 
the fiends had taken him to the swamp and hanged him. 



138 J.IFE OF GEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

He said he suspected no harm until he got about two 
miles from the house, when they stopped, and taking him 
from the mule, said: 'Now, old man, you've got to tell 
us where your gold is hidden.' He told them he had 
no gold, that he had gone down to his plantation for a 
short visit, and had left his money at home in the bank. 
They cursed him, and told him that story would 
not do; that his wife had gone up to Macon and 
brought it all down, for a negro man had told them she 
had brought a trunk full of gold and silver down there, 
and that he could scarcely lift the trunk, it was so heavy. 
They then said they had brought him to the swamp to 
make him tell where it was. If he would give it up 
without force, all right, if not, they would hang him 
until he revealed its hiding place. 

**He repeated his first statement, and told them he 
had no gold. 

'*They then took him to a tree that bent over the path, 
tied a rope around his neck, threw it over a projecting 
limb, and drew him up until his feet were off the ground. 
He did not quite lose consciousness, when they let him 
down and said, *now where is your gold.' 

"He told them the same stor}^, whereupon one of them 
cried, *we'll make you tell another story before we are 
done with you, so pull him up again boys.' They 
raised him up again, and that time he said he felt as if 
he were suffocating. They again lowered him to his 
feet and cried out fiercel}^ 'now tell us where that gold 
is or we will kill you, and your wife will never know 
what has become of vou. 'I have told you the truth — 



THE FALL OF ATLANTA AND SHERMAN's RAID. I39 

I have got no gold,' he again repeated, adding, 'I am 
an old man and at your mercy. If you want to kill me 
you have the power to do it, but I cannot die with a lie 
on my lips. I have no gold. I have a gold watch at 
the house, but nothing else.' 

**One of them who seemed to be the leader said, 
'swing the old Rebel up again; next time we will get all 
the truth from him.' They then lifted him up and let 
him fall with more force than before. He heard a 
sound as of water rushing through his head, and then 
a blindness came over him, and a dry choking sensation 
was felt in his throat, as he lost consciousness. 

**The next thing he remembered, he was some dis- 
tance from the place where he was hanged, lying with 
his head down the hill near a stream of water, and one 
of the men was bathing his face and another rubbing 
his hands. For some time he was unable to speak. 
Then he heard one of them say — 'we liked to have car- 
ried this game too far.' When he was able to sit up, 
they placed him on the mule and brought him to the 
house to get his watch. 

"When Mrs. S went to get Judge H 's watch, 

which was not with our other valuables, the plunderers 
compelled her to guide them to the place where every- 
thing of value we had was concealed, and she came to 
me when she returned to the house, and with trembling 
lips, said she hoped I would not blame her for showing 
them where our silver was hidden. 'I couldn't help it, 
she cried, 'they threatened to kill me if I did not tell.' 
They said they had hanged Judge H until he was 



140 LIFE OF GEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

nearly dead, and they would do the same to me if I did 
not show them where everything was concealed. They 
even threatened to burn the house down if I kept back 
anything.' 

**Poor woman, life was dear to her. She did try to 
save it. I did not blame her. Oh ! the horror of that 
night! 

**None but God will ever know what I suffered. 
There my husband lay with scorching fever, his tongue 
parched and swollen, and his throat dry and sore. He 
begged for water, and there was not a drop to be had. 
The Yankees had cut all the well ropes, and stolen ail 
the buckets, and there was no water nearer than half a 
mile. 

**Just before daylight, one of the negro men offered 
to go to the spring for some water, but there was not a 
bucket or tub to be found. Everything had been taken 
off. He at last found a small tin bucket that some of 
the negroes had used to carry their dinner to the field, 
and brought that full — about half a gallon. 

** The next morning — Wednesday — a rough-looking 
man from Iowa came to the window and asked me if he 
could be of an}^ service to me. The negroes were 
afraid to come near the house during the day, but came 
at night and brought in wood, and did all they could for 
me. I told the stranger we had no water and nothing 
to eat. He offered to bring me some water if I would 
give him a bucket. I told him every vessel had been 
carried off, and we had nothing. He then left, and in 
about an hour returned with a wooden pail, such as 



THE FALL OF ATLANTA AND SHERMAN S RAID. I4I 

the negroes used in carrying water to the fields. In 
other days 1 should have hesitated to drink water from 
such a vessel, as it certainly did not look very clean, but I 
was thankful to get it, and expressed my gratitude to 
the man. 

** The Good Samaritan then took from his pockets two 
envelopes, one containing about two tablespoonfuls of 
parched coffee, and the other about the same quantity 
of brown sugar, and handed them to me. Notwith- 
standing my trouble, I could not help being amused. 
He brought me a small teacup and said, 'Now, take 
this coffee and grind it if you have a mill, if not, put it 
in a rag and beat it until it is fine, then put it in the cup 
and pour boiling water on it, and let it boil a few 
minutes. You will then have a good drink for your 
sick husband.' 

**I thanked him, but did not let him know I knew 
how to make coffee. I know one thing, I never appre- 
ciated a cup of coffee more than I did that one. This 
man was rough-looking, but his heart was in the right 
place. He certainly acted the part of the * Good 
Samaritan/ 

**With one exception, the only kindness I received 
was from the Western soldiers. There were in that 
large army some feelings of kindness, but it was not my 
good fortune to meet them. Not far from the house, 
there were about a dozen banks of potatoes that the 
plunderers began to carry away by the bagful. They 
would come into the house, take any article of clothing 
they could find, tie a string around one end of it, and 
make a receptacle to carry off potatoes. 



142 LIFE OF GEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

**My Western friend, the Good Samaritan, who gave 
me the coffee, came to the doOr and said, *Give me a 
basket and I will bring in some of those potatoes, for 
you will need them.' 

*'I, fortunately, had a basket in the room and gave it 
to him, and he brought in about three bushels and put 
them imder the bed on the floor. 

*'A11 the time he was bringing them in, the soldiers 
were jeering him and calling him 'Old Secesh.' He 
paid no attention to their taunts, but kept bringing in 
potatoes as long as he could find a place to put them. 

•K- -x- -jf '< During the day a number of officers came 
in *to pay their respects,' as they said. One of them, 
speaking of the horrors war brought on the women and 
children of the South, spoke freely of the terrible way 
in which South Carolina was to be punished. 

"'You may think the people of Georgia are faring 
badly,' he said, 'and they are, but God pity the people 
of South Carolina when this army gets there, for we 
have orders to lay everything in ashes, not to leave a 
green thing in the State for man or beast. That State 
will be made to feel the fearful sin of secession, before 
our army gets through it. Here our soldiers are held in 
check as much as is possible, with such a large body of 
men, but when we get to South Carolina they will be 
turned loose to follow their own inclinations.' 'Their 
own inclinations,' he seemed to understand, would be 
murder, arson, i*kpe and robbery. 

"On Saturday morning we looked out upon a scene of 
desolation and ruin. We could hardly believe it was 



THE FALL OF ATLANTA AND SHERMAN's RAID. I43 

our home. One week before, it was one of the most 
beautiful places in the State. Now it was a vast wreck. 
Gin-houses, packing houses, screws, granary — all lay in 
ashes. Not a fence was to be seen for miles. The corn 
crop had not been gathered, and the army had turned 
their stock in the fields and destroyed what they had not 
carried off. 

*'The poor negroes had fared no better than we had. 
Th.Q.\r friends had stolen everything from them, as well 
as from us. Their master had given them a month's 
rations, thinking they would be able to save them, but 
alas, they had provisions, clothing and everything taken 
from them; even their shoes were taken from their feet. 
Their chickens had all been killed, and their beds and 
bedding carried off. Poor creatures, they looked discon- 
solate, and when they saw their master, the older ones 
burst out crying. *Marster,' they asked, piteously, 
'What we all gwine to do now? Everything gone, 
nothing left for us to eat.' 

" 'I can't tell. It looks as if we would all have to 
starve together. I never saw starvation looking me in 
the face before.' 

"I well remember the distress of one of the negro 
women. She was sitting on her doorsteps, swaying her 
body back and forth, in the manner peculiar to the 
negro, and making a mournful noise, a kind of moaning 
and low sorrowful sound, occasionally wringing her 
hands and crying out. As we approached her she 
raised her head. 

'* 'Marster,' she said, rolling her eyes strangely, 'what 



144 I^IFIS. OF GEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

kind of folks dese here Yankees? They won't even let 
the dead rest in de grave.' *What do you mean?' he 
asked. 'You know my chile, what I bury last week? 
Dey take 'em up and left 'em on de top of de ground for 
de hog to root. What you tink of dat, sir.' " 

**Her story was true. A fresh grave was dug up in 
search of treasure. A coffin with a little baby taken 
out and broken open, and the pitiful little corpse left on 
the ground for the hogs. The eyes of black as well as 
white were made to weep. There was no distinction on 
account of race or color. And at that moment Sherman 
was hauling ten days' rations for his whole army in his 
twenty-five hundred six mule wagons. The live stock, 
horses, cows, hogs, calves, sheep were shot and left on 
the ground as carrion."^ 

Here is another picture of the search for treasure. A 
party of bummers, coming on a secluded country house, 
inhabited by a one-armed and wounded Confederate 
soldier, his child, wife and his sister, undertook to find 
Jeff. Davis's gold, which they hoped, or believed, or 
pretended to believe, had been concealed by the family. 

They secured large chests of plate and jewelry, which 
had been sent up the country from Charleston for safe 
keeping, and which, doubtless, were the origin of the 
myth about Jeff. Davis's gold. 

The one-armed man was under guard, and refusing to 
tell where the gold was — for he asserted truthfully there 
was no gold — was struck over the head by the colonel 
with a musket, and when about to repeat the blow, the 

*Our Women in the War, page 77. 



THE FALL OF ATLANTA AND SHERMAN's RAID. I45 

young wife rushed in and warded it from her husband 
by receiving it herself. 

'* ' No more of that, colonel," said an officer, who had 
been sitting on one side for some time, examining a 
casket of jewels. ' Take the fellow out and shoot him 
or break his neck as soon as you please, but let that 
girl alone or I'll take her under my own wing.' 

'* In a shorter time than I can relate it, the inhuman 
wretches dragged my helpless brother beneath a large 
maple tree, and placing a strong rope round his neck, 
prepared to execute their threat. 

*** Perhaps the coil of hemp around his neck will 
make him open his mouth,' said one of the ruffians, 
givmg the rope a sudden jerk. 

** * You have already been told that there is no gold 
here, and now I add that if there were tons of it I would 
rather die twenty deaths than deliver it into the hands of 
such a band of cut-throats and robbers.' 

** These defiant words from Earle were received with 
a volley of curses, and the order was given, * draw him 
up.' The rope was tightening when one of the men 
exclaimed, * Where's his wife? She must see him 
swing ;' and as if in answer to the call, Ins sprang forward 
and tightly clasped the rope. * You dare not, you shall 
not kill him,' she cried, her face blanched to the dread- 
ful whiteness of death. 

''* Who will stop us, you cursed Rebel?' asked the 
colonel, the most inhuman of the lot. * Here, men, pull 
her off, and if she won't keep her distance, make her.' 

** Rudely they tore her hands from the rope, and held 



146 LIFE OF GEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

them firmly, despite her efforts to free herself. And 
then I saw the rope tighten again, and my poor brother 
swing into mid-air. They twice drew Earle up and let 
him down, each time calling him to tell where the gold 
was, and were preparing to hang him a third time when 
some officers, apparently of high rank, rode up and 
ordered the release of the captive, and the party to 
rejoin their brigade.""'' 

Said Dr. : *'When Sherman's x\rmy passed 

through my place in North Carolina, some of his camp 
followers, in their greedy search for treasure, entered 
the graveyard, dug up my dead children, opened their 
coffins and left their bodies exposed to birds and beasts 
less vile than they."t 

Such barbarities were practiced daily during three 
months in the track of desolation over three States. 

The atrocities of the "unspeakable Turk" in Bulgaria, 
painted by the pencil of Gladstone, have since then 
roused Christendom to horror, and civilization to execra- 
tion. This is not war, it is barbarism. The morale of 
of an army comes from its head. The spirit of the 
commander inspires his followers. In the preceding 
year General Lee, in the enemy's country, had issued 
the following order: 

Headquarters Army of Northern Virginia, [ 
Chambersburg, Pa., June 27, 1863. ) 
General Order ^ No. yj : 

The Commanding General has observed with marked 
satisfaction, the conduct of the troops upon the march, 
and confidendy anticipates results commensurate with 

*Our Women in the War, page 59. 
tOur Women in the War, page 116. 



THE FALL OF ATLANTA AND SHERMAN S RAID. I47 

the high spirit they have manifested. * "^^" Their con- 
duct in other respects has, with few exceptions, been in 
keeping with their character as soldiers, and entitles 
them to approbation and praise. 

There have, however, been instances of forgetfulness, 
on the part of some, that they have in keeping the yet 
unsullied reputation of the army, and that the duties 
exacted of us by civilization and Christianity are not less 
obligatory in the country of the eiiemy than in our own. 

The Commanding General considers that no greater 
disgrace could befall the army, and through it our whole 
people, than the perpetration of the barbarous outrages 
upon the innocent and defenceless, and the wanton 
destruction of private property, which have marked the 
course of the enemy in our own country. Such pro- 
ceedings not only disgrace the perpetrators and all con- 
nected with them, but are subversive of the discipline 
and efficiency of the army, and destructive of the ends 
of our present movements. It must be remembered, 
that we make war only o?i armed men^ and that we can- 
not take vengeance for the wrongs our people have suf- 
fered, without lowering ourselves in the eyes of all, 
whose abhorrence has been excited by the atrocities of 
our enemy, and offending against Him to whom ven- 
geance belongeth, without whose favor and support 
must all prove vain. 

The Commanding General, therefore, earnestly exhorts 
the troops to abstain, with most scrupulous care, from 
unnecessary or wanton injury of private property, and 
he enjoins upon all officers to arrest and bring to sum- 
mary punishment all who shall in any way offend 
against the orders on this subject. 

R. E. Lee, 

General. 

The idea of plunder permeated and saturated the 
Federal Army, from its headquarters to its bummers. 

When Sherman captured Atlanta, he found there 
about thirty-one thousand bales of cotton, some of it 
belonging to foreigners. He seized it all, as prize of 



148 LIFE OF GEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

war, and took the position with Mr. Barklay, the British 
Consul, that all cotton was satifrated with treason, and 
that no rights of British subjects would be recognized 
to that article. 

As soon as the capture of the cotton was known, 
December 27, 1864, Grant wrote Sherman: **Please 
instruct Foster to hold on to all the propert}^ in Savan- 
nah, and especially the cotton. Do not turn it over to 
citizens or treasury agents, without orders from the War 
Department.""^ 

But the Secretary of War himself felt an interest m 
that cotton, and on January 11, 1864, he arrived in 
Savannah in a revenue cutjer, with Simeon Draper, of 
New York, and others. 

Sherman had a keen and alert intellect, and knew 
exactly what he wanted, and also how to get it. 

He claimed the cotton as prize of war, assimulating it 
to captures, and the law of prize, on the high seas. Such 
a claim was unknown to the common law or the law of 
nations, and the Supreme Court of the United States 
have since decided that no such law of booty exists 
in the Army of the United States. 

Stanton knew no theory by which the Secretary of 
War could share in booty. Sherman was satisfied that 
the Commander of the Army must take a large share, 
and of this opinion seemed Grant. So Grant wrote 
Sherman to hold on. Sherman ordered a list of all cot- 
ton with the marks on it to be made out, and for it to be 
forwarded to New York for adjudication and division by 

♦Sherman's Memoirs, Vol. H, page 238. 



THE FALL OF ATLANTA AND SHERMAN S RAID. I49 

the District Court of the United States, acting as a prize 
court. 

Stanton did not agree to this, so he ordered it all 
turned over to Simeon Draper, agent of Treasury De- 
partment of the United States, and that all the bagging 
be taken off the bales and that they be re-bagged and 
re-packed so as to render identification impossible. 
This was a tolerably smart trick to ** steal, take and 
carry away" thirty thousand bales of cotton, worth in 
the market six millions of dollars. Stolen silver is fre- 
quently melted up in the same way, to destroy the marks 
on it and prevent identification. There was a smarter 
one, however, and it v/as played. The chief quarter- 
master of Sherman's old corps put a couple of clerks in 
the warehouse where this disbaling and rebaling was go- 
ing on, to keep a descriptive list of each bale, showing 
its old marks, its new marks and the name of its owner. 

So Draper got the cotton, and some of the proceeds 
were paid into the treasury, under the captured and 
abandoned property act of the United States, which 
provided that all proceeds of such property should be 
held in trust for owners, who could get it by proving 
loyalty, &c. 

After the war the Supreme Court of the United 
States settled the law^, that a pardon by the President of 
the United States wiped out all the consequences of 
treason, and released all penalties. So the chief quar- 
termaster sought out the owners of this captured cotton, 
and agreed to recover the proceeds of it, in the Court of 
Claims. 



150 LIFE OF GEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

He actually recovered ;^3, 700,000 of this money, 
the government refunding the frice, about fifty cents 
per pound, paid for the cotton, and he got one-half of 
the sum recovered. 



THE DRAGONNADE OF SOUTH CAROLINA. 151 



CHAPTER XII. 

THE DRAGONNADE OF SOUTH CAROLINA, AND THE 
SACK OF COLUMBIA. 



M 



AJOR GENERAL HALLECK, on December 
18, 1863, wrote from headquarters of the army 
as chief of staff at Washington, to Sherman at Savannah: 

"Should you capture Charleston, I hope that by 
some accident the place may be destroyed, and if a little 
salt should be sown on its site, it might prevent the 
growth of future crops of nullification and treason."* 

Sherman replied, December 24th: "I will bear in 
mind your hint as to Charleston, and do not think 
'salt' will be necessary. When I move, the Fifteenth 
Corps will be on the right of the right wing, and their 
position will naturally bring them into Charleston first; 
and if you have watched the history of that corps, you 
will have remarked that they generally do their work 
pretty well. The truth is, the whole army is burning 
with an insatiable desire to wreak vengeance upon 
South Carolina. I almost tremble at her fate, but feel 
that she deserves all that seems in store for her. " * 
I look upon Columbia as quite as bad as Charleston, and 
I doubt if we shall spare the public buildings there, as 
we did at Milledgeville."t 

In the same vein, Sherman writes in his memoirs : 

"So I saw and felt that we would not be able longer 

♦Sherman's Memoirs, Vol. II, page 223, 
tShermau's Memoirs, Vol. II, page 227. 



152 LIFE OF GEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

to restrain our men, as we had done in Georgia. Per- 
sonally, I had many friends in Charleston, to whom I 
would gladly have extended protection and mercy, but 
they were beyond my personal reach, and I would not 
restrain the army, lest its vigor and energy should be 
impaired."* 

With a General as loquacious . and vain-glorious as 
Sherman, these views of his were known to every 
**bummer" of the Fifteenth Corps, ''which always did 
its work so well," as well as his whole command. So 
that when the army marched into South Carolina it did 
just what he wanted it to do, what Halleck wanted it 
to do, and what they both instigated it to do. 

These facts would be of less importance, but that 
Gen. Sherman has persistently, deliberately, and with- 
out cessation, denied that he burnt Columbia, or knew 
it was going to be burnt, or permitted it to be burnt. 

If he would avow the act, and take the responsibility 
to history, that at least would be honest and frank. But 
he has put on record in the United States Senate a care- 
fully prepared, long matured, deliberate, and premedi- 
tated, falsification of history as to this crowning act of 
vandalism. Great men sometimes make blunders. 
Great generals sometimes have committed grave crimes, 
but no one has ever before skulked from the responsi- 
bility of his act, and endeavored to fix the stain on an 
innocent and honorable adversary. 

Napoleon perfectly understood that the execution of 
the Due d'Eughien was both a blunder and a crime, but 

*Shermafl"'s Memoirs, Vol. II, page 254. 



THE DRAGONNADE OF SOUTH CAROLINA. 153 

even he never shirked the responsibihty for that dark 

deed. 

Speaking of the firing of Columbia, he says in 

his report : 

**Gen. Wade Hampton, who commanded the Con- 
federate rear-guard of cavalry, had, in anticipation of 
our capture of Columbia, ordered that all cotton, public 
and private, should be moved into the streets and 
fired to prevent our making use of it. * * * 
Some of these piles of cotton were burning," (when 
the Federal troops entered the city,) especially one in 
the very heart of the city, near the court-house, but the 
fire was partially subdued by the labor of our soldiers. 
" * " Before one single public building had been 
fired by order, the smouldering fires, set by Hampton's 
order, were rekindled by the wind and communicated 
to the buildings around. I disclaim on the part of my 
army any agency in this fire, but on the contrary claim 
that we saved what of Columbia remains unconsumed. 
And without hesitation I charge Gen. Wade Hampton 
with having burned his own city of Columbia, not with 
malicious intent, or as the manifestation of a silly 
^Roman stoicism,' but from folly and want of sense, in 
filling it with lint cotton and tinder." 

Hampton and the people of Columbia vigorously 
repelled this charge, and in May, 1866, published over- 
whelming proof of its falsehood. 

In 1874-5, when Sherman's Memoirs were written, 
it was universally conceded that the charge was 
unfounded. Under the circumstances, an honorable 
soldier, nay, an honest man, would have said that he 
was mistaken as to the statement made in his report; 
and a generous one would have expressed regret at the 
wrong done his adversary, as well as the injury to his 
own reputation in having originated and circulated a 



154 LIFE OF GEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

slander. But the memoir does neither. In them Gen. 
Sherman says : '^Many of the*people thought that this 
fire was deliberately planned and executed. This is not 
true. It was accidental, and in my judgment began with 
the cotton which Gen. Hampton's men had set fire to on 
leaving the city, (whether by his orders or not is not 
material), which fire was partially subdued early in the 
day by our men, but when night came, the high winds 
fanned it again into full blaze, carried it against the 
frame houses, which caught like tinder, and soon spread 
beyond our control. * * * In my official report of 
this conflagration, I distinctly charged it to Gen. Wade 
Hampton, and confess I did so pointedly to shake the faith 
of his people in him, for he was, in my opinion, a brag- 
gart, and professed to be the especial champion of 
South Carolina."* 

If there is such another conlession recorded on the 
pages of any history, anywhere, at any time, by a man 
of high position, by a general of a great army, and a 
man high in the confidence of a great government, I 
have never heard of it. The records of the criminal 
courts sometimes preserve the statements of pickpockets, 
of rogues, of swindlers, that they have *'put up jobs," 
as they call it, on honest men, to call attention from 
themselves. The cry of *'stop thief" is a familiar and 
shallow device of these gentry. 

But never before has the General of an army recorded 
himself, in his own memoirs, carefully prepared ten 
years after the fact, that he had deliberately, wilfully 

*Sherman's Memoirs, Vol. II, page 287. 



THE DRAGONNADE OF SOUTH CAROLINA. 155 

and with malice aforethought, invented and uttered a lie, 
a base calumny against his adversary, for the sole pur- 
pose of injuring his reputation. 

There is the record made by Gen. Sherman himself. 
Examine, explain, extenuate it! 

While these events were transpirmg in Georgia, 
Thomas and Schofield had destroyed Hood's Army at 
Nashville and Franklin, and Grant at once ordered 
Schofield, with his Twenty-third Corps, by rail to Anna- 
polis, thence to be transported by sea to Newbern, North 
Carolina. The campaign then arranged, was that Sher- 
man should cut loose from Savannah and Beaufort on 
the sea, march across South Carolina to Fayetteville, 
North Carolina on the Cape Fear, and thus compel the 
evacuation of Charleston, while Grant would make 
another attempt on Wilmington. 

From Fayetteville, Sherman w^as to march to Golds- 
borough, North Carolina, where the railroad from 
Newbern, fifty miles off, joins the Weldon & Wilming- 
ton road, and refreshed with reinforcements, clothes, 
shoes and luxuries — to move on Raleigh, the capital 
of North Carolina; thence to Greensborough, where the 
railroad connects the North Carolina railroad with the 
Virginia system, thence to Danville, and cut Lee off at 
Farmville, where the railroad from Richmond to Dan- 
ville and the South crosses the railroad from Petersburg 
to Bristol, Tennessee, and the southwest. This pro- 
gramme, carried out, would end the war. So, on 
February i, 1864, Sherman started from Savannah and 
Pocataligo northward, with four corps of infantry and one 



156 LIFE OF GEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

division of cavalry of three brigades, with an effective 
force of 60,000 men, twenty-five hundred wagons, with 
six mules each, and six hundred ambulances, with two 
mules each. 

The wagons contamed ammunition for a great battle, 
forage for seven days, and rations for twenty days, 
depending for fresh meat on the country. 

Goldsboro was four hundred and twenty-five miles off. 
There was absolutely no force to oppose him. Hampton 
and Butler, with two skeleton brigades, were at Col- 
umbia. 

'A march of thirty days was before him. The weather 
was perfect. Cool enough and warm enough to permit 
men to sleep without tents or cover. The fresh meat 
and forage needed, could have been collected by the 
commissaries, impressing them in an orderly way, and 
there was no necessity for burning a single house, mur- 
dering a single old man, dishonoring a single woman, 
or desecrating the grave of a child. 

Yet that army moved through South Carolina, from its 
southwestern corner to its northeast boundary, diagon- 
ally crossing the State, covering a front of sixty miles 
with its parallel columns, and its * 'bummers" on its flanks, 
leaving not a house with a brick chimney, not a barn, or 
a mill, nor a gin-house, nor any building — hardly a 
fence, nor a beast, nor a fowl ; not a graveyard where the 
fresh graves were not dug up. And the Army of the 
Northern Virginia supplied many a fresh grave that 
winter to South Carolina. Not a woman, white or black, 
gentle or simple, who was not insulted. 



THE DRAGONNADE OF SOUTH CAROLINA. I57 

It has been said, that all our Christianity and civiHza- 
tion has removed us only three generations from barbar- 
ism. That if you scratch a Russian, you will find a 
Tartar under the veneer and varnish. This march 
proves that the philosopher, who made the first observa- 
tion was utterly mistaken, for experience has proved 
that sixty days is enough to make savages of men, with 
Christian mothers, reared under the influence of the 
bible, and with the light of civilization in their lives. No 
tongue will ever tell, no pen can record the horrors of 
that march. Ten generations of women will transmit, in 
whispers to their daughters, traditions of unspeakable 
things. These things may not be written. Eyes will 
weep for them, and memories will transmit them for 
many a generation. 

Posterity will decide, and history will record, upon 
whom the responsibility for all this crime shall rest, just 
as certainly as that the Great Judge on the last day will 
render judgment for it. 

The burning of Columbia was so atrocious, and 
accompanied by such incidents of barbarity, that it 
attracted the denunciation of Christendom, and Sher- 
man, as we have seen, denied being responsible for it, 
and charged it upon Hampton. He has since confessed 
that the charge against Hampton was a malicious 
slander, invented by himself, to injure that great soldier's 
reputation among his own people. But in the memoirs, 
Sherman stands to his denial that he was responsible for 
the sack of Columbia. 

But he also records the instructions of Halleck to 



158 LIFE OF GP:N. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

destroy Charleston, and sow its desolated foundations 
with salt. He shows how, he replied to Halleck, that 
the Fifteenth corps would take charge of Charleston, 
and that that corps always did its work thoroughly. 
He further shows how he considered Columbia as bad 
as Charleston; that he did not intend to restrain his 
soldiers breathino; fire, sword and destruction to South 
Carolina, and that he sent the Fifteenth corps, his corps 
d'elite, through Columbia, and that Columbia was 
sacked. Only the Fifteenth corps passed through Col- 
umbia. This is the case as General Sherman states it. 

No other or further proof is required, but there are 
some details that ought to be put in permanent shape for 
authentic perpetuation. 

In the winter of i865-'66, the people of Columbia 
appointed a committee to collect and perpetuate testi- 
mony about the sack of the city. 

At the head of this committee was ex-Chancellor J. 
P. Carroll, a citizen illustrious for long and distinguished 
service to his State, and a blameless life. With him 
were others of whom any society anywhere would have 
been proud. 

Chancellor Carroll, in May, 1866, reported as follows, 
and I insert his report that it may go on record, ^Hn per- 
petuam menioriain rei:^^ 

**The committee who were charged with the duty of 
collecting the evidence in relation to the destruction of 
Columbia by fire, on the 17th of February, 1865, sub- 
mit the following report : 

*'By the terms of the resolution appointing them, the 



THE DRAGONNADE OF SOUTH CAHOLINA. I59 

committee do not feel authorized to deduce any conclu- 
sion, or pronounce any judgment, however warranted 
by the proof, as to the person responsible for the crime. 
Their task will be accomplished by presenting the 
evidence that has been obtained, with an abstract of the 
facts established by it. 

**More than sixty depositions and statements in writing, 
from as many individuals, have been placed in the 
hands of the committee. The array of witnesses is 
impressive, not merely because of their number, but for 
the high-toned and elevated character of some of them, 
the unpretending and sterling probity of others, and the 
general intelligence and worth of all. The plain and 
unvarnished narrative subjoined is taken from the testi- 
mony referred to, solely and exclusively, except so much 
as refers to certain declarations of Gen. Sherman himself,^ 
widely circulated through the public press, and to the 
ravages of his army in this State ; after their departure 
from Columbia, matters of such notoriety as, in the 
judgment of the committee, to dispense with the neces- 
sity of formal proof. 

*'The forces of Gen. Sherman's command, while in 
Georgia, seem to have anticipated that their next march 
would be through South Carolina. Their temper and 
feelings towards our people, a witness, Mrs. L. Cathe- 
rine Jaynor, thus describes : 

** *The soldiers were universal in their threats. They 
seemed to gloat over the distress that would accrue from 
their march through the State. I conversed with num- 
bers of all grades belonging to the 14th and 20th corps. 
Such expressions as the followintr were of hourly 



l6o LIFE OF GEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

occurrence: "Carolina may well dread us; she brought 
this war on, and shall pay the, penalty." *'You think 
Georgia has suffered? Just wait until we get into Caro- 
lina — every man, woman and child may dread us 
there.'" 

"Gen. Sherman himself, the same witness informs us, 

in addressing himself to a lady of his acquaintance, 

said to her: 'Go off the line of railroad, for I will not 

answer for the consequences where the army passes.' 

A TRAIL OF FIRE. 

"The threats uttered in Georgia were sternly executed 
by the troops of Gen. Sherman upon their entrance into 
this State. For eighty miles along the route of his army, 
through the most highly improved and cultivated region 
of the State, according to the testimony of intelligent 
and respectable witnesses, the habitations of but two 
white persons remain. As he advanced, the villages of 
Hardeeville, Grahamville, Gillisonville, McPhersonville, 
Barnwell, Blackville, Midway, Orangeburg and Lex- 
ington were successively devoted to the flames. Indig- 
nities and outrages were perpetrated upon the persons of 
the inhabitants; the implements of agriculture were 
broken; dwellings, barns, mills, gin-houses were con- 
sumed; provisions of every description appropriated or 
destroyed; horses and mules carried away, and sheep, 
cattle and hogs were either taken for actual use, or shot 
down, and left behind. The like devastation marked 
the progress of the invading army, from Columbia 
through the State to its northern frontier, and the 
towns of Winnsboro, Camden and Cheraw suffered 



THE DRAGONNADE OF SOUTH CAROLINA. l6l 

from like visitations by lire. If a single town, or village, 
or hamlet, within their line of march escaped altogether 
the torch of the invaders, the committee have not been 
informed of the exception. The line of Gen. Sherman's 
march from his entering the territory of the State up to 
Columbia, and from Columbia to the North Carolina 
border, was one continuous track of fire. 

"The devastation and ruin thus inflicted were but the 
execution of the policy, and plan of Gen. Sherman, for 
the subjugation of the Confederate States. Extracts from 
his address at Salem, Illinois, in July last, have appeared 
in the public prints, and thus he announces and vindi- 
cates the policy and plan referred to : 

** *We were strung out from Nashville clear down to 
Atlanta. Had I gone on, stringing out our forces, what 
danger would there not have been of their attacking this 
little head of the column and crushing it ? Therefore, 
I resolved in a moment to stop the game of guarding 
their cities, and to destroy their cities. We were deter- 
mined to produce results, and now what were those 
results? To make every man woman and child in the * 
South feel that if they dared to rebel against the flag of 
their country they must die or submit.'" 

AN ARMY OF INCENDIARIES. 

"The plan of subjugation adopted by Gen. Sherman 
was fully comprehended and approved by his army. 
His officers and men universally justified their acts, by 
declaring that it was 'the way to put down rebellion, by 
burning and destroying everything.' 

"Before the surrender of our town, the soldiers of Gen. 
Sherman, officers and privates, declared that it was to 
be destroyed. *It was,' deposes a witness, Mrs. Rosa 



F GE^ 



162 LIFE OF GEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

I. Meetze, *the common talk among them, at the village 
of Lexington, that Columbia was to be burned by Gen. 
Sherman.' 

"At the same place, on the i6th of February, 1865, as 
deposed to by another witness, Mrs. Frances T. Caugh- 
man, the general officer in command of his cavalry 
forces. General Kilpatrick, said in reference to Colum- 
bia : *Sherman will lay it in ashes for them.' 

*' 'It was the general impression among all the prison- 
ers we captured,' says a Confederate officer. Col. J. P. 
Austin, of the 9th Kentucky regular cavalry, 'that 
Columbia was to be destroyed.' 

"On the morning of the same day (February 16, 1865,) 
some of the forces of Gen. Sherman appeared on the 
western side of the river, and without a demand of sur- 
render, or any previous notice of their purpose, began 
to shell the town, then filled with women, children and 
aged persons, and continued to do so, at intervals, 
throughout the day. 

"The Confederate forces were withdrawn, and the 
town restored to the control of the municipal authorities 
on the morning of the 17th of February. Accompanied 
by three of the aldermen, the mayor, between 8 and 9 
o'clock A. M., proceeded in the direction of Broad 
River for the purpose of surrendering the city to Gen. 
Sherman. Acting in concert with the mayor, the officer 
in command of the rear guard of the Confederate cavalry. 
Gen. M. C. Butler, forbore from further resistance to the 
advance of the opposing enemy, and took effectual pre- 
cautions against anvthing being done which might pro- 



THE DRAGONNADE OF SOUTH CAROLINA. 163 

voke Gen. Sherman or his troops to acts of violence, 
or severity towards the town or its citizens. 

''The surrender of Columbia was made by the mayor 
and aldermen to the first general officer of the hostile 
army whom they met, and that officer promised protec- 
tion to the town and its inhabitants, until communication 
could be had with Gen. Sherman, and the terms of 
surrender arranged. 

• SACKING THE CITY. 

**By II o'clock A. M., the town was in possession of 
the Federal forces, the first detachmxcnt entering being 
the command of the officer who had received the sur- 
render. They had scarcely marched into the town, 
however, before they began to break into the stores of 
the merchants, appropriating the contents, or throwing 
them in the streets and destroying them. 

"As other bodies of troops came in, the pillage grew 
more general, and soon the sack of the town was 
universal. Guards were in general sent to those of the 
citizens who applied for them, but in numerous instances 
they proved to be unable, or unwilling to perform the 
duty assigned them. Scarcely a single household, or 
family escaped altogether from being plundered. The 
streets of the town were densely filled wath thousands of 
Federal soldiers, drinking, shouting, carousing and 
robbing the defenceless inhabitants, without reprimand 
or check from their officers, and this state of things con- 
tinued until night. 

"In some instances guards were refused. Papers and 



164 LIFE OF GEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

property of great value were in the vaults of one of the 
city banks, while the apartments above, and in the rear, 
were occupied by women and children, with their food 
and clothing. For a guard to protect them, application 
was made by one of our worthiest and most respectable 
citizens, Mr. Edwin J. Scott, first to the general officer, 
who had received the town. Col. Stone, and then to the 
provost marshal. Major Jenkins. The response made 
to the applicant by the former officer, though standing 
idle in the crowd, was that he ' had no time to attend 
to him,' and the answer of the latter was, 'I cannot 
undertake to protect private property.' Between 2 and 
3 o'clock P. M., Gen. Sherman in person rode into 
Columbia, informed the mayor that his letter had been 
received, and promised protection to the town. Extra- 
ordinary license was allowed to his soldiers by Gen. 
Sherman. 

IN THE HANDS OF HIS FRIENDS. 

<'In the afternoon of the 17th of February, 1865, and 
shortly after his arrival in Columbia, the mayor of the 
town, at the request of Gen. Sherman, accompanied 
him on a visit to a lady of his acquaintance. While 
proceeding to her residence, Gen. Sherman began to 
express his opinion very freely upon the subject of our 
institution of slavery. In the midst of his remarks he 
was interrupted by the sudden and near report of a 
musket. Immediately before them, in the direction they 
were going, they observed a group of Federal soldiers 
seeming to be excited, and upon approaching they saw 
a negro lying dead direcdy in their path, being shot 



THE DRAGONNADE OF SOUTH CAROLINA. 165 

through the heart. 'Gen. Sherman,' the mayor, Dr. 
T. J. Goodwin, narrates, 'asked of the soldiers **how 
came the negro shot," and was answered that the negro 
had been guilty of great insolence to them, and that 
thereupon Gen. Sherman remarked: ''Stop this, boys; 
this is all wrong. Take away the body and bury it." 
Gen. Sherman, continues the mayor, then stepped over 
the body of the negro, and observed to this deponent 
that in quiet times such a thing ought to be noticed, but 
in times like these it could not be done. Gen. Sherman 
resumed his conversation in relation to slavery, and that 
no arrest was ordered or any censure or reprimand 
uttered by him except as above stated. About sundown/ 
as the mayor deposes, 'Gen. Sherman said to him: 
"Go home and rest assured that your city will be as safe 
in my hands as if you had controlled it." He added 
that he was compelled to burn some of the public build- 
ings, and in so doing did not wish to destroy one particle 
of private property. This evening, he said, was too 
windy to do anything.' 

''An esteemed clergyman, the R-ev. A. Toomer Porter, 
testifies that the same afternoon between 6 and 7 o'clock 
Gen. Sherman said to him: 'You must know a great 
many ladies; go around and tell them to go to bed 
quietly ; they will not be disturbed any more than if my 
army was one hundred miles off. ' He seemed oblivious 
of the fact that we had been pillaged and insulted the 
whole day. In one hour's time the whole city was in 
flames. 

* 'Meanwhile the soldiers of Gen. Sherman had burned 



l66 LIFE OF GEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

that afternoon many houses in the environs of the town, 
including the dwelling of Gen. Hampton, with that ot 
his sisters, formerly the residence of their father and 
once the seat of genial and princely hospitality. 

THREATS AND WARNINGS. 

* 'Throughout the day, after they had marched into the 
town, the soldiers of Gen. Sherman gave distinct and 
frequent notice to the citizens of the impending calamity, 
usually in the form of direct and fierce threats, but 
occasionally as if in kindly forewarning. A lady of 
rare worth and intelligence and of high social position, 
Mrs. L. S. McCord, relates the following incident: 
'One of my maids brought me a paper left, she told 
me, by a Yankee soldier ; it was an ill-spelled, but 
kindly warning of the horrors to come, written upon a 
torn sheet of my dead son's note book, which, with 
private papers of every kind, now strewed my yard. 
It w^as signed by a lieutenant, of what company and 
regiment I did not take note. The writer said he had 
relatives and friends at the South, and that he felt for 
us ; that his heart bled to think of what was threatened. 
**Ladies," he wrote, *'I pity you; leave this town — go 
anywhere to be safer than here." This was written in 
the morning; the fires were in the evening and night.' 

**One of our citizens, of great intelligence and respec- 
tability, (Wm. H. Orchard,) was visited about 7 P. M. 
by a squad of some six or seven soldiers, to whose 
depredations he submitted with a composure which 
seemed to impress their leader. Of his conversation 



THE DRAGONNADE OF SOUTH CAROLINA. 167 

with this person the gentleman referred to testified as 
follows: *On leaving the yard he called to me, and 
said he wished to speak to me alone. He then said to 
me in an undertone: "You seem to be a clever sort of a 
man and have a large family, so I will give you some 
advice. If you have anything you wish to save take 

care of it at once, for before morning this town 

will be in ashes, every house in it." My only reply was, 
"Can that be true ?" He said, "Yes, and if you do not 
believe me, you will be the sufferer. If you watch, 
you will see three rockets go up soon, and if you do not 
take my advice you will see h 1." ' 

SIGNAL ROCKETS AND DISABLED FIRE-HOSE. 

"Within an hour afterwards three rockets were seen to 
ascend from a point in front of the Mayor's dwelling. 
But a few minutes elapsed before fires in quick succes- 
sion broke out, and at intervals so distant that they could 
not have been communicated from the one to the other. 
At various parts of the town the soldiers of Gen. Sher- 
man, at the appearance of the rockets, declared that 
they were appointed signals for a general conflagration. 
The fire companies, with their engines, promptly re- 
paired to the scene of the fires, and endeavored to arrest 
them, but in vain. The soldiers of Gen. Sherman, with 
bayonets and axes, pierced and cut the hose, disabled 
the engines, and prevented the citizens from extinguish- 
ing the flames. The wind was high, and blew from the 
west. The fires spread and advanced with fearful 
rapidity, and soon enveloped the very heart of the town. 



l68 LIFE OF GEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

*'The pillage, begun upon the entrance of the hostile 
forces, continued without cessation or abatement, and 
now the town was delivered up to the accumulated 
horrors of sack or conflagration. The inhabitants 
were subjected to personal indignities and outrages. A 
witness, Capt. W. B. Stanley, testifies *that several times 
during the night he saw the soldiers of Sherman take 
from females bundles of clothing and provisions, open 
them, appropriate what they wanted and throw the 
remainder into the flames.' Men were violently seized 
and threatened with the halter, or pistol, to compel them 
to disclose where their gold or silver was concealed. 

"The revered and beloved pastor of one of our 
churches, the Rev. P. J. Shand, states that, * in the 
midst and during the progress of the appalling calamity, 
above all other noises might be heard the demoniac and 
gladsome shouts of the soldiery.' Driven from his 
home by the flames, with the aid of a servant he was 
bearing off a trunk containing the communion plate of 
his church, his wife walking by his side, when he was 
surrounded by five of the soldiers, who required him to 
put down the trunk and inform them of its contents, 
which was done. The sequel he thus narrates: *They 
then demanded the key, but I not having it they pro- 
ceeded in their efforts to break the lock. While four 
of them were thus engaged, the fifth seized me with his 
left hand by the collar, and presenting a pistol to my 
breast with his right he demanded of me my watch. I 
had it not about me, but he searched by pockets thor- 
oughly and then joined his comrades, who, finding it 



THE DRAGONNADE OF SOUTH CAROLINA. I69 

impracticable to force open the lock, took up the trunk 
and carried it away. These men, he adds, were all 
perfectly sober.' 

''By 3 o'clock A M on the night of the 17th of Feb- 
ruary, 1865, more than two-thirds of the town lay in 
ashes, composing the most highly improved and the 
entire business portion of it. Thousands of the inhabi- 
tants, including women delicately reared, young chil- 
dren, the aged and the sick, passed that winter night in 
the open air, without shelter from the bitter and piercing 
blasts. About the hour mentioned, 3 o'clock A. M., 
another highly esteemed clergyman, the Rev. A. Toomer 
Porter, personally known to Gen. Sherman, was at the 
corner of a street conversing with one of his officers on 
horseback, when Gen. Sherman, in citizen's attire, 
walked up and accosted him. The interview is thus 
described : 

' ORDER THIS THING STOPPED.* 

** *In the bright light of the burning city Gen. Sher- 
man recognized me and remarked: **This is a horrible 
sight." **Yes," I replied, "when you reflect that women 
and children are the victims." He said: '* Your Gov- 
ernor is responsible for this." *'How so ?" I replied. 
"Who ever heard," he said, "of an evacuated city to be 
left a depot of liquor for an army to occupy? I found one 
hundred and twenty casks of whiskey in one cellar. 
Your Governor, being a lawyer or a judge, refused to 
have it destroyed, as it was private property, and now 
my men have got drunk and have got beyond my con- 
trol, and this is the result." Perceiving the officer on 



170 LIFE OF GEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

horseback, he said : "Capt. Andrews, did I not order 
that this thing should be stopped?" *'Yes, General," said 
the Captain; '*but the first division that came in soon got 
as drunk as the first regiment that occupied the town." 
*'Then, sir," said Gen. Sherman, '*go and bring in the 
second division. I hold you personally responsible for 
its immediate cessation." The officer darted off, and 
Sherman bid me good evening. I am sure it was no 
more than an hour and a-half from the time that Gen. 
Sherman gave his order before the city was cleared of 
the destroyers.' 

**From that time until the departure of Gen. Sherman 
from Columbia (with perhaps one or two exceptions) not 
another dwelling in it was burned by his soldiers, and 
during the succeeding days and nights of his occupancy 
perfect tranquility prevailed throughout the town. The 
discipline of his troops was perfect, the soldiers 
standing in great awe of their officers. That Columbia 
was burned by the soldiers of Gen. Sherman — that the 
vast majority of the incendiaries were sober — that for 
hours they were seen with combustibles firing house 
after house, without any affectation of concealment and 
without the slightest check from their officers, is estab- 
lished by proof full to repletion, and wearisome from its 
very superfluity. 

* 'After the destruction of the town his officers and men 
openly approved of its burning and exulted in it. ' I 
saw,' deposes the mayor, 'very few drunken soldiers 
that night. Many who appeared to sympathize with our 
people told me that the fate and doom of Columbia had 



THE DRAGONNADE OF SOUTH CAROLINA. 17I 

been common talk around their camp-fires ever since 
they left Savannah.' 

**It was said by numbers of the soldiers that the order 
had been given to burn down the city. There is strong 
evidence that such an order was actually issued in rela- 
tion to the house of Gen. Jno. S. Preston. The Ursuline 
Convent was destroyed by the fire, and the proof referred 
to comes from a revered and honored member of that 
holy sisterhood — the Mother Superior ; and it is sub- 
joined in her own words : 

*' ^Our convent was consumed in the general con- 
flagration of Columbia. Ourselves and pupils were 
forced to fly, leaving provisions, clothing, and almost 
everything. We spent the night in the open air in 
the churchyard. On the following morninig Gen. Sher- 
man made a visit, expressed his regret at the burning 
of our convent, disclaimed the act, attributing it to 
the intoxication of his soldiers, and told me to choose 
any house in town for a convent and it should be ours. 
He deputed his Adjutant-General, Col. Ewing, to act in 
his stead. Col. Ewing reminded us of Gen. Sherman's 
offer to give us any house in Columbia we might choose 
for a convent. **We have thought of it," said we, *'and 
of asking for Gen. Preston's house, which is large." 
*'That is where Gen. Logan holds his headquarters," 
said he, "and orders have already been given, I know, 
to burn it on to-morrow morning ; but if you say you 
wfll take it for a convent I will speak to the General, 
and the order will be countermanded." On the follow- 
ing morning, after many inquiries, we learned from the 



172 LIFE OJ^^^KN. 



JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON, 



officer in charge, (Gen. Perry, I think,) that his orders 
were to fire it, unless the Sisters were in actual posses- 
sion of it, but if even a detachment of Sisters were in it 
it should be spared on their account. Accordingly we 
took possession of it, although fires were already kindled 
near, and the servants were carrying off the bedding and 
furniture, in view of the house being consigned to the 
flames.' 

GRATIFYING THE GENERAL. 

** Although orders for the actual burning of the town 
may not have been given, the soldiers of Gen. Sherman 
certainly believed that its destruction would not be dis- 
pleasing to him. That such was their impression we 
have the authority of a personage not less distinguished 
than the officer of highest rank in the army of invaders, 
next after the commander-in-chief himself. The proof 
is beyond impeachment. It comes from the honored 
pastor of one of our city churches, (the Rev. P. J. 
Shand,) to whom reference has already been made, and 
it is thus expressed in his written statement in the pos- 
session of the committee: 

** *As well as I recollect, November, 1865, I went in 
company with a friend, to see Gen. Howard, at his head- 
quarters in Charleston, on matters of business. Before 
we, left the conversation turned on the destruction of 
Columbia. Gen. Howard expressed his regret at the 
occurrence, and added the following words: **Though 
Gen. Sherman did not order the burning of the town, 
yet, somehow or other, the men had taken up the idea 
that if they destroyed the capital of South Carolina, it 



THE DRAGONNADE OF SOUTH CAROLINA. I73 

would be peculiarly gratifying to Gen. Sherman." These 
were his words, in the order in which I set them forth. 
I noted them down as having great significance, and 
they are as fresh in my remembrance as they were 
immediately after they were spoken. My friend (whose 
recollection accords fully with my own) and myself, on 
our way home, talked the matter over, and could not 
but be struck by the two following facts: First, that 
although Gen. Howard said that Gen. Sherman did not 
order the burning, he did not state that Gen. Sherman 
gave order that the city should not be burned. Second, 
that it was surprising, if Gen. Sherman was opposed to 
the burning, that his opposition should have been so 
disguised, as to lead to the conviction on the part of his 
soldiery that the act, so far from incurring his disappro- 
bation or censure, would be a source to him of peculiar 
gratification.' 

**The cotton bales in the town had been placed in the 
centre of the wide streets, in order to be burned to pre- 
vent their falling into the possession of the invaders. 
But upon Gen. Hampton's suggesting that this might 
endanger the town, and that, as the South Carolina 
railroad had been destroyed, the cotton could not be 
removed. Gen. Beauregard, upon this representation, 
directed Gen. Hampton to issue an order that the cotton 
should not be burned. The proof of this fact is to be 
found in the written statement of Gen. Beauregard him- 
self. Accordingly, and in due time, the order forbid- 
ding the burning of the cotton was issued by Gen. 
Hampton, and communicated to the Confederate troops. 



174 LIFE OF GEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

The officer then acting as Gen. Hampton's adjutant 
(Capt. Rawlins Lowndes) speaks as follows: 

THE 'BURNING COTTON' MYTH. 

'* *Soon after Gen. Hampton assumed command of the 
cavalry, which he did on the morning of the 17th of 
February, he told me that Gen. Beauregard had deter- 
mined not to burn the cotton, as the Yankees had 
destroyed the railroad, and directed me to issue an order 
that no cotton should be fired. This I did at once, and 
the same order was extended to the cavalry throughout 
their march through South and North Carolina.' 

*'The general officer commanding the division forming 
the rear guard of the Confederate cavalry (Gen. M. C. 
Butler) deposes: 'That he was personally present with 
the rear squadron of this division; that Lieut. -Gen. 
"Wade Hampton withdrew simultaneously with him, with 
a part of this deponent's command, and that Gen. 
Hampton, on the morning of the evacuation and the day 
previous, directed him that the cotton must not be set on 
fire; and this order, he adds, was communicated to the 
entire division, and strictly observed.' 

"A clergyman, highly esteemed at the North, as well 
as at the South, (Rev. A. Toomer Porter), thus testifies: 
'Gen. Hampton had told me at daylight, in answer to 
the question whether he was going to burn the cotton, 
"No; the wind is high; it might catch something and 
give Sherman an excuse to burn the town.' " 

" 'Between 8 and 9 o'clock on the morning of the 17th 
of Februar}^,' deposes the mayor, 'Gen. Hampton, 



THE DRAGONNADE OF SOUTH CAROLINA. I75 

whilst on his horse, observed some cotton piled not far 
off in the middle of the street. He advised me to put a 
guard over it, saying, *'some careless ones, by smoking, 
might set it on fire, and in doing so endanger the city.'' 
From that hour I saw nothing more of Gen. Hampton 
until the war was over.' 

'*Not one bale of the cotton had been fired by the Con- 
federate troops when they withdrew from Columbia. 
*The only thing on fire at the time of the evacuation 
was the depot building of the South Carolina Railroad, 
which caught fire accidentally from the explosion of 
some amunition.' This is the statement of Gen. Beau- 
regard himself. It is sustained by the testimony of the 
officer, high in rank but higher still in character, who 
commanded the rear guard of the Confederate cavalry, 
(Gen. M. C. Butler,) and is concurred in by other wit- 
nesses, comprising officers, clergymen, and citizens — 
witnesses of such repute and such numbers as to render 
the proof overwhelming. 

**The fire at the South Carolina Railroaa depot burnt 
out without extending to any other buildings. Shortly 
after the first detachment of Gen. Sherman's troops had 
entered the town, and whilst the men were seated or 
reclining on the cotton bales in Main street, and passing 
to and fro along them with lighted cigars and pipes, the 
row of cotton bales between Washington and Lady 
streets caught fire, the bales being badly packed, with 
the cotton protruding from them. The flames extended 
swiftly over the cotton, and the fire companies with their 
engines were called out, and by i o'clock P. M. the fire 



176 LIFE OF GEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

was effectually extinguished. While the fire companies 
were engaged about the cotton- an alarm was given of 
fire in the jail, and one of the engines being sent there 
the flames were soon subdued, with slight injury only to 
one of the cells. 

"About 5 o'clock in the afternoon, as deposed by a 
witness, Mrs. E. Squire, the cotton bales in Sumter 
street, between Washington and Lady streets, were set 
on fire b}^ Gen. Sherman's wagon train, then passing 
along the cotton. But that fire was soon extinguished 
by the efforts of the witness referred to and her family. 
*I saw,' says a witness, Mr. John McKenzie, *fire 
balls thrown out of the wagons against the Hon. W. F. 
DeSaussure's house, but without doing any damage.' 
No other fires in the town occurred until after night, 
when the general conflagration began. As already 
stated, the wind blew from the west, but the fires after 
night broke out first on the west of Main and Sumter 
streets, where the cotton bales were placed. ^The 
cotton,' it is testified and proved by Mr. Ed. J. Scott, 
instead of burning the houses was burnt by them.' 



*'Gen. Sherman, as has been shown, on the night of 
the 17th of February, and while the town was in flames, 
ascribed the burning of Columbia to the intoxication of 
his soldiers, and to no other cause. On the following 
day, the i8th of February, the lady to whom reference 
was first made (Mrs. L. S. McCord,) at the request of 
a friend, having undertaken to present a paper to Gen. 



THE DRAGONNADE OF SOUTH CAROLINA. 177 

Howard, sought an interview with that officer, seco:i:l 
in command of the invading army, and found Gen. 
Sherman with him. Her narrative of a part of the 
interview is as follows : 

** *I handed him the paper, which he glanced at, and 
then in a somewhat subdued voice, but standing so near 
Gen. Sherman that I think it impossible that the latter 
could have help hearing him, he said: **You may rest 

satisfied, Mrs. , that there w411 be nothing of the 

kind happening to-night. The truth is, our men last 
night got beyond our control ; many of them were shot, 
many of them were killed ; there will be no repetition of 
these things to-night. I assure you there will be 
nothi-ng of the kind; to-night will be perfectly quiet." 
And it was quiet, peaceful as the grave, the ghost of its 
predecessor.' 

** *The same day, i8th February, Gen. Sherman,' 
deposes the mayor, ^sent for me. I went to see him 
about I o'clock. He met me very cordially, and said 
he regretted very much that our city was burnt, and 
that it was my fault. I asked him how? He said in 
suffering ardent spirits to be left in the city after it was 
evacuated, saying, **who could command drunken 
soldiers?" There was no allusion nade to Gen. Hamp- 
ton, to accident, or to cotton.' 

**On the succeeding day, Sunday, 19th February, 
1865, the mayor and six of the citizens visited Gen. 
Sherman, in order to obtain food for the subsistence of 
the women and children, until communication could be 
had with the country. Gen. Sherman upon that occa- 



178 LIFE OF GEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

sion talked much. 'In the course of his discourse/ 
deposes one of the gentlemen, *(Mr. Edwin I. Scott,) 
'he referred to the burning of the city, admitting that 
it was done by his troops, but excusing them because, 
as he alleged, they had been made drunk by our 
citizens, one of whom, a druggist, he said had brought 
a pail full of spirits to them on their arrival. Again, on 
our leaving the room, he expressed regret that the liquor 
had not been destroyed before his men entered the 
place, but he never mentioned or alluded in any way to 
Gen. Hampton, or the cotton, nor gave the slightest inti- 
mation that they were instrumental in the destruction of 
the city.' 

** 'At that time,' deposes the same witness, 'the uni- 
versal testimony of our people was that Sherman's 
troops burnt the town. Since then I have been in the 
habit of daily intercourse with all classes in and about 
Columbia, high and low, rich and poor, male and 
female, whites and blacks, yet I have not met with a 
single person who attributed the calamity to any other 
cause. If, he adds, a transaction that occurred in the 
presence of forty or fifty thousand people can be success- 
fully falsified then all human testimony is worthless.' 

A DESOLATED COUNTRY. 

"As evidence of the general distress and suffering 
which resulted from the sack and burning of our city, 
and the desolation of the adjoining country, the com- 
mittee refer to the fact, established by unimpeachable 
testimony, that for about three months daily rations, 
consisting generally of a pint of meal and a small 



THE DRAGONNADE OF SOUTH CAROLINA. 1 79 

allowance of poor beef for each person, were dealt out 
at Columbia to upwards of 8,000 sufferers. 

*'Of the suffering and distress of the individual inhabi- 
tants, some conception may be collected from the expe- 
rience of one of them, (Mrs. Agnes Law,) a lady more 
venerable for her virtues even than for her age, whose 
narrative, almost entire, we venture to introduce: 

** *I am 72 years old,' she deposes, *and have lived in 
this town forty-eight years. My dwelling was a brick 
house, three stories, slate roof, with large gardens on 
two sides. When Columbia was burnt my sister was 
with me; also a niece of mine, recently confined, who 
had not yet ventured out» of the house. When Gen. 
Sherman took possession I got four guards ; they were 
well-behaved and sober men. I gave them supper. 
One lay down on the sofa, the others walked about. 
When the city began to burn I wished to -move my fur- 
niture. They objected, and said my house was in no 
danger. Not long afterwards these guards themselves 
took lighted candles from the mantlepiece and went up- 
stairs; at the same time other soldiers crowded into 
the house. My sister followed them up-stairs, but 
came down very soon to say, *'They are setting the cur- 
tains on fire." Soon the whole house was in a blaze. 
When those who set fire up stairs came down they said 
to me, **01d woman, if you do not mean to burn up with 
the house you had better get out of it." My niece had 
been carried up to the Taylor house on Arsenal Hill. 
I went to the door to see if I could get any person I 
knew to assist me up there. I had been very sick. I 
could see no friend — only crowds of Federal soldiers. 



l8o LIFE OF GEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

I was afraid I should fall in the street and be burnt up 
in the flames of the houses blazifig on both sides of the 
street. I had to go alone. I spent that night at the 
Taylor house, which a Federal officer said should not 
be burned out of pity for my niece. The next two 
nights I passed in my garden, without any shelter. I 
have been for .over fifty years a member of the Presby- 
terian Church. I cannot live long. I shall meet Gen. 
Sherman and his soldiers at the bar of God, and I give 
this testimony against them in the full view of that dread 
tribunal.' 

"The committee have designed, by the preceding 
summary of the more pron^inent events and incidents 
connected with the destruction of Columbia, to present 
only an abstract of the numerous depositions and proofs 
in their possession. The proprieties imposed upon them 
by the very nature of the duties to which they have been 
assigned have precluded their doing more. In the evi- 
dence thus collected may be read, in all its pathetic and 
heartrendering details, the story of the tragic fate that 
has befallen our once beautiful city, now in ashes and 
ruins. Impressed with the historic value of the proofs 
referred to, and their importance to the cause of truth, 
and with a view to their preservation, the committee 
respectfully recommend that they be committed to the 
guardianship of the municipal authorities, and be de- 
posited with the archives of the town, trusting that in 
after and better times they will yet be found effectual as 
well to vindicate the innocent as to confound the guilty. 

J. P. Carroll, Chairman." 
May, 1866. 



SHERMAN AND CORNWALLIS IN NORTH CAROLINA. l8l 



CHAPTER XIII. 

SHERMAN AND CORNWALLIS IN NORTH CAROLINA. 

SHERMAN burnt Columbia February 17, 1865, and 
then pushed on to Fayetteville, on the Cape Fear. 
His campaign was an able one, for he kept in touch 
with salt water from the time he reached it at Savannah 
up to the surrender of Johnston's army. 

At Fayetteville he opened communication with Gen. 
Terry on March 12th, the Federals having taken Fort 
Fisher, and occupied Wilmington. 

From there he moved on to Goldsborough, N. C, 
where he expected to be joined by Schofield and his 
23,000 reinforcements. 

When Cornwallis pursued Greene, in February, 1781, 
just eighty-four years before, he moved through the west- 
ern part of the State. When he retreated, after the battle 
of Guilford court-house, he fell back to Cross creek, 
now Fayetteville, so a part of his march was over the 
same country that Sherman moved over. On his 
advance he was attacked everywhere. His pickets 
were fired on in the night; his scouts were shot down 
from the bush. Graham, with a handful of country 
boys, held him back at Charlotte, *^the Hornet's Nest," 
for half a day. But Cornwallis burnt no towns; he 
laid waste no plantations ; his soldiers hung no old men, 
and dug up no children's corpses, to get treasure. 

When he reached Fayetteville on his way to Wil- 



l82 LIFE OF GEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

mington, his troops halted one day in the road in front 
of a plantation house. The mistress of the house, a gay 
and beautiful young matron of eighteen, with the im- 
pulsive curiosity of a child, ran out on the front piazza 
to gaze at the pageant. 

A party of officers dismounted and approached the 
house, when she asked the foremost **Was Lord Corn- 
wallis there? She wanted to see a Lord." 

**Madame," said the gentleman, removing his hat, 
"I am Lord . Cornwallis." Then, with the formal 
courtesy of the day, he led her into the house, giving to 
the frightened family every assurance of protection. 
With the high breeding of a gentleman, and the frank- 
ness of a soldier, he won all hearts during his stay, from 
the venerable grandmother to the gay girl who first 
accosted him. 

While the army remained, not an article was disturbed 
on the plantation, though, as he himself warned them, 
there were stragglers in his wake, whom he could not 
detect, and who failed not to do what mischief they 
could, in the way of plundering, after he had passed. . 

That girl's grand-daughters now tell that story of 
chivalry and respect for defenceless women. 

Her grandson, Charles B. Mallett, Esq., tells this 
story of that other army that passed there, in 1865, 
eighty-four years afterwards: 

**The china and glassware were all carried out of the 
house by the Federal soldiers, and deliberately smashed 
in the yard. The furniture — piano, beds, tables, bu- 
reaus — were all cut to pieces with axes; the pantries 



SHERMAN AND CORNWALLIS IN NORTH CAROLINA. 183 

and smoke-houses were stripped of their contents ; the 
negro houses were all plundered; the poultry, cows, 
horses, &c., were shot down and carried off, and then, 
after this, all the houses were fired and burnt to the 
ground." 

The cotton factory belonging to the family was burned 
as were also six others near Fayetteville. John M. Rose, 
Esq., a near neighbor of the Malletts, says: *'They 
plundered my house of everything and robbed all the 
negroes. They fired the buildings and fences and left 
a dozen slaughtered cattle in my yard." 

Four gentlemen were hung by the neck until nearly 
dead to force them to tell where valuables were hidden. 

The property taken from another family, in jewels, 
plate, money, &c., was estimated to be worth ;^25,ooo 
in gold.* 

Governor Z. B. Vance, who was governor of North 
Carolina during the war, and has been her represent- 
ative in the Senate of the United States nearly ever 
since, has drawn the contrast between the invasion by 
Cornwallis and Tarleton, in 1781, and Sherman and 
Kilpatrick, in 1865. He says: 

**On the 1st day of February, 1805, that movement 
began. With irresistible force his columns began their 
march through the southern regions of South Carolina 
towards Columbia, and apparently Charlotte, North 
Carolina, and so on into Virginia along the track of 
Sherman's last great predecessor, Lord Cornwallis, in 
1 78 1. But whether it was that he feared the winter 

* The Last Ninety Days of the War.— p. 65. 



184 LIFE o7t5^v* 



JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 



mud of the North Carolina hill country, or that he did 
not care to trust himself to such combinations of the 
Confederates as might cross his path so far in the 
interior, he left Lord Cornwallis' track near Winnsboro', 
South Carolina, and turning to the right made for Fay- 
etteville, crossing the Catawba and the Great Pedee. 
His army marched in two great divisions, near a day's 
march apart, thus covering and devastating a wide 
expanse of country. With reference to this famous and 
infamous march, I wish to say that I hope I am too 
much of a man to complain of the natural and inevitable 
hardships, or even cruelties, of war; but of the manner 
in which this army treated the peaceful and defenceless 
inhabitants in the reach of its columns, all civilization 
should complain. There are always stragglers and 
desperadoes, following in the wake of an army, who do 
some damage to, and inflict some outrages upon helpless 
citizens, in spite of all the efforts of commanding officers 
to restrain and punish ; but when a General organizes a 
corps of thieves and plunderers as a part of his invad- 
ing army, and licenses beforehand their outrages, he 
and all who countenance, aid or abet, invite the execra- 
tion of mankind. This peculiar arm of the military 
service, it is char'ged and believed, was instituted by 
Gen. Sherman in his invasion of the Southern States. 
Certain it is that the operations of his ^Bummer Corps' 
were as regular and as unrebuked, if not as much com- 
mended for efficiency, as any other division of his army, 
and their atrocities are often justified or excused on the 
ground that 'such is war,' 



SHERMy\N AND CORNWALLIS IN NORTH CAROLINA. 185 

**In his own official report of his operations in Georgia, 
he says: 'We consumed the corn and fodder in the 
region of country thirty miles on either side of a line 
from Atlanta to Savannah; also the sweet potatoes, 
hogs, sheep and poultry, and carried off more than ten 
thousand horses and mules. I estimate the damage 
done to the State of Georgia at one hundred million 
dollars, at least twenty million of which inured to our 
benefit, and the remainder was simply waste and 
destruction!' The same chivalric course of warfare 
was continued, only worse, through South and North 
Carolina. The '-remainder^'' delicately alluded to — that 
is to say, the damage done to the unresisting inhabitants, 
over and above the seizing of necessary army supplies, 
consisted in private houses burned; stock shot down and 
left to rot; bed clothes, money, watches, spoons, plate 
and ladies' jewelry stolen, &c., &c. A lane of desola- 
tion sixty miles wide, through the heart of three great 
States, marked by more burnings and destruction than 
ever followed in the wake of the wildest cyclone that 
ever laid forest low! And all done, not to support an 
invading army, but for *'pure waste and destruction;" to 
punish the crime of rebellion, not in the persons of 
those who had brought these things about, but of the 
peaceful non-combatants, the tillers of the soil, the 
women and children, the aged and feeble, and the poor 
slaves! A silver spoon was evidence of disloyalty; a 
ring on a lady's finger was sure proof of sympathy with 
rebellion ; whilst a gold watch was prima facia evidence 
of most damnable guilt on the part of the wearer. These 



l86 LIFE OF GEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

obnoxious ear-marks of treason must be seized and con- 
fiscated for private use-— -for such is war! 

"As proof that these things met the approbation of the 
officers of that army, hundreds of instances can be cited, 
where the depredations were committed in full view of 
the officers. Many can be shown where they partici- 
pated in the plunder; and no where has any case come 
under my observation, or under my knowledge, in which 
the perpetrators were even rebuked, much less punished. 
In vain did the terrified people secrete their valuables 
upon the approach of Sherman's army; with infernal 
skill this corps of bummers maintained their high repu- 
tation as the most expert thieves on earth, by ransacking 
every conceivable place of concealment, penetrating 
every suspicious spot of earth with their ramrods and 
bayonets, searching every cellar, out-house, nook and 
cranny. 

"If these failed, and they sometimes did, torture of 
the inhabitants was freely employed to force disclo- 
sure. Sometimes, with noble rage at their disappoint- 
ment, the victims were left dead, as a warning to all 
others who should dare hide a jewel, or a family trinket 
from the cupidity of a ^Soldier of the Union.' No doubt 
the stern necessity for such things caused great pain to 
those who inflicted them, but the Union must be restored, 
and how could that be done whilst a felonious gold 
watch, or treasonable spoon, was suffered to remain in 
the land, Sfivincr aid and comfort to rebellion? For such 
is war! Are such things war, indeed? Let us see: 
"Eighty-four years before that time, there was a war 



SHERMAN AND CORNWALLIS IN NORTH CAROLINyY. 1S7 

in that same country; it was a rebellion, too, and an 
English nobleman led the troops of Great Britain through 
that same region, over much of the same route, in his 
efforts to subdue that rebellion. The people through 
whose land he marched were bitterly hostile ; they shot 
his foraging parties, his sentinels and stragglers- the 
fired upon him from every wood. 

"He and his troops had every motive to „ate and to 
punish those rebellious and hostile people. It so hap- 
pens that the original order-book of Lord Cornwallis is 
in possession of the North Carolina Historical Society. 
I have seen and read it. Let us make a i&w extracts, 
and see what he considered ze/^r, and what he thought 
to be the duty of a civilized soldier towards non-com- 
batants and the helpless : 

**CaMP NEAR BeATTY'S FoRD," ) . 

January 28, 1781. f 
**Lord Cornwallis has so often experienced the zeal 
and good will of the army, that he has not the smallest 
doubt that the officers and soldiers will most cheerfully 
submit to the ill conveniences that must naturally attend 
war, so remote from water-carriage and the magazines 
of the army. The supply of rum for a time will be 
absolutely impossible, and that of meal very uncertain. 
It is needless to point out to the officers the necessity of 
preserving the strictest discipline, and of preventing the 
oppressed people from suffering violence by the hands 
from whom they are taught to look for protection.' 

*'Now, Gen. Sherman was fighting, as he said, for the 
sole purpose of restoring the Union, and for making the 
people of the rebellious States look to the Union for pro- 
tection. Does any act or order of his anywhere indicate 
a similar desire of protecting the people from suffering 
at the hands of those whose duty it was to protect them? 



l88 LIFE OF GENT JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

** Again — 

^Headquarters, Cansler's Plantation/ ) 

February 2^ 1781. ) 

*Lord Cornwallis is highly displeased that several 
houses have been set on fire to-day during the march — 
a disgrace to the army — and he will punish to the utmost 
severity any person or persons who shall be found guilty 
of committing so disgraceful an outrage. His Lordship 
requests the commanding officers of the corps will en- 
endeavor to find the persons who set fire to the houses 
this day.' 

"Now, think of the march of Sherman's army, which 
could be discovered a great way off by the smoke of 
burning homesteads by day and the lurid glare of flames 
bv night, from Atlanta to Savannah, from Columbia to 
Fayetteville, and suppose that such an order as this had 
been issued by its commanding officer, and rigidly ex- 
ecuted, would not the mortality have been quite equal to 
that of a great battle? 

"Arriving in Fayetteville on the lOth of March, 1865, 
he not only burned the Arsenal — one of the finest in the 
United States — which, perhaps, he might have properly 
done, but he also burned five private dwelling-houses 
nearby; he burned the principal printing office, that of 
the old * Fayetteville Observer;' he burned the old 
Bank of North Carolina, eleven large warehouses, five 
cotton mills, and quite a number of private dwellings in 
other parts of the town, whilst in the suburbs almost a 
clean sweep was made. In one locality nine houses 
were burned. Universally, houses were gutted before 
they were burned; and, after everything portable was 
secured, the furniture was ruthlessly destroyed. Pianos, 



SHERMAN AND CORNWALLIS IN NORTH CAROLINA. 189 

on which perhaps rebel tunes had been played — * Dixie' 
or 'My Maryland' — disloyal bureaus, traitorous tables 
and chairs were cut to pieces with axes; and frequendy, 
after all this damage, fire was applied and all consumed. 
Carriages and vehicles of all kinds were wantonly de- 
stroyed or burned. Instances could be given of old men 
who had the shoes taken from their feet, the hats from 
their heads and clothes from their persons; their wives 
and children subjected to like treatment. In one in- 
stance, as the marauders left, they shot down a dozen 
cattle belonging to an old man and left their carcasses 
lying in the yard. Think of that, and remember the 
grievances of the Pennsylvania Dutch farmers, who 
came, in all seriousness, to complain to Gen. Long- 
street, in the Gettysburg campaign, of the outrage which 
some of his ferocious rebels had committed upon them 
by milking their cows ! On one occasion, at Fayetteville, 
four gentlemen were hung by the neck until nearly dead 
to force them to disclose where their valuables were 
hidden, and one of them was shot to death. 

** Again — 

^Headquarters Dobbins House,' \ 
February 17, 1781. f 

* Lord Cornwallis is very sorry to be obliged to call 
the attention of the officers of the army to the repeated 
orders against plundering, and he assures the officers 
that if their duty to their King and country, and their 
feeling for humanity, are not sufficient to force obedience 
to them, he must, however, reluctantly make use of such 
powers as the military laws have placed in his hands. 
* ^ * ^ j|. jg expected that Captains will exert 
themselves to keep good order and prevent plundering. 
•X- ^ * * j^^y officer who looks oil with iiidifference 



190 LIFE OF G^^ JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

and docs not do his utmost to prevent shameful marauding 
will be considered in a more criminal light than the per- 
sons ivho commit these scandalous crimes^ which must 
bring disgrace and ruin on nis Majesty's service. All 
foraging parties will give receipts for the supplies taken 
by them.' 

**Now, taking it for granted that Lord Cornwallis, a 

distinguished soldier and a gentleman, is an authority on 

the rights of war, could there be found anywhere a 

more damnatory comment upon the practices of General 

Sherman and his Army? 

"Again — 

'Headquarters, Freelands, ) 
February 28, 178 1. f 

* Mem orandum : ' 

*A watch found by the regiment of Bose. The 
owner may have it from the Adjutant of that regiment 
upon proving property.' 

'* Another — 

'Smith's Plantation,' ) 
March i, 1781. f 

^Brigade Orders^ 

* ^ -X- 7t i^ woman having been robbed of a 
watch, a black silk handkerchief, a gallon of peach 
brandy and a shirt, and as by description, by a soldier 
of the guards, the camp, and every man's kit is to be 
immediately searched for the same, by the officer of the 
brigade.' 

"Are there any poets in the audience, or other per- 
sons in whom the imaginative faculty has been largely 
cultivated? If so, let me beg him to do me the favor of 
conceiving, if he can, and make manifest to me, the 
idea of a notice of a lost watch being given, in general' 
orders, by Wm. Tecumseh Sherman, and the offer to 



SHERMAN AND CORNWALLIS IN NORTH CAROLINA. I9I 

return it on proof of property by the rebel owner! 
Let him imagine, if he can, the searching of every man's 
kit in that army, for a stolen watch, a shirt, a black silk 
handkerchief and a gallon of peach brandy — because 
*such is war.' 

'^Time and your patience forbids that I should further 
quote from this interesting record of the war of 
1781. Suffice it to say that the whole policy and con- 
duct of that British commander was such as to indicate 
unmistakably that he did not consider the burning of 
private houses, the stealing of private property, and 
the outraging of helpless, private citizens as War, but 
as robbery and arson. I venture to say up to the 
period when that great march taught us the contrary, no 
humane general or civilized people in Christendom 
believed that ^siich was war.' Has civilization gone 
backward since Lord Cornwallis' day? Have arson and 
vulgar theft been ennobled into heroic virtues ? If so, 
when and by whom? Has the art of discovering a poor 
man's hidden treasure by fraud or torture been elevated 
into the strategy which wins a campaign ? If so, when 
and by whom? 

'*No, sir, it will not do to slur over these things by a 
vague reference to the inevitable cruelties of war. The 
time is fast coming when the conduct of that campaign 
will be looked upon in the light of real humanity, and 
investigated with the real historic spirit which evolves 
truth; and all the partisan songs which have been sung, 
or orations which subservient orators have spoken, 
about that great march to the sea; and all the carica- 



192 LIFE OF*"«^^\ JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

tures of Southern leaders which the bitterness of a 

diseased sectional sentiment has inspired; and all the 

glamour of a great success, shatl not avail to restrain 

the inexorable, the illuminating pen of histor}^ Truth, 

like charity, never faileth. Whether there be prophecies 

they shall fail; whether there be tongues they shall 

cease ; whether there be knowledge it shall vanish away ; 

but when the truth, which is perfect, has come, then 

that what is in part shall be done away. 

"Now let us contrast Gen. Sherman with his greatest 

foe, likewise the greatest, certainly the most humane, 

general of modern times, and see whether lie regarded 

the pitiless destruction of the substance of women and 

children and inoffensive inhabitants as legitimate war." 

'Headquarters Army Northern Virginia, ) 

June 27, 1863. X 

''General Order No. yj. 

*The Commanding General has observed with marked 
satisfaction the conduct of the troops on the march. 
There have, however, been instances of forgetfulness 
on the part of some that they have in keeping the yet 
unsullied reputation of this army, and that the duties 
exacted of us by civilization and Christianity are not less 
obligatory in the country of the enemy than our own. 
The Commanding General considers that no greater 
disgrace could befall the army, and through it our whole 
people, than the perpetration of barbarous outrages upon 
the unarmed and defenceless, and the wanton destruction 
of private property, that have marked the course of the 
enemy in our own country. * -^^ * ^ It will be re- 
membered that we make war only upon armed men. 

' R. E. Lee, General.' 
*'The humanity and Christian spirit of this order was 
such as to challenge the admiration of foreign nations. 



SHERMAN AND CORNWALLIS IN NORTH CAROLINA, I93 

The * London Times' commented upon it, and its Amer- 
ican correspondent said: *The greatest surprise has been 
expressed to me by officers from the Austrian, Prussian 
and English armies, each of which have representatives 
herq, that volunteer troops, provoked by nearly twenty- 
seven months of unparalleled ruthlessness and wanton- 
ness, of which their country has been the scene, should 
be under such control, and willing to act in harmony 
with the long-suffering and forbearance of President 
Davis and Gen. Lee.' 

<'To show how this order was executed, the same 
writer tells a story of how he witnessed, with his own 
eyes. Gen. Lee and a surgeon of his command repairing 
the damage to a farmer's fence. Col. McClure, of Phil- 
adelphia, a Union soldier himself, bears witness to the 
good conduct of Lee's ragged rebels in that famous 
campaign. He tells of hundreds of them coming to him 
and asking for a little bread and coffee, and of others 
who were wet and shivering * asking permission' to enter 
a house in which they saw a bright fire, to warm them- 
selves until their coffee should be ready. 

**Hundreds of similar instances could be given, sub- 
stantiated by the testimony of men on both sides, to show 
the splendid humanity of that great invasion. Blessed 
be the good God, who, if in His wisdom. He denied us 
success, yet gave to us and our children the rich inher- 
itage of this great example. 

*'Now, there is Lee's order on entering Pennsylvania, 
and there are the proofs referred to of the good faith with 
which that order was executed. Was any such humane 



194 LIFE OF^I^. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

order issued by Gen. Sherman when he began his march 
through Georgia, South and North Carolina? If so, let 
the numberless and atrocious outrages which character- 
ized his every step, speak as to the mala fides with which 
it was executed. Let a few other things also speak. 
Major-Gen. Halle ck, then, I believe, commander-in- 
chief, under the President, of the armies of the Union, 
on the 1 8th of December, 1864, dispatched as follows to 
Gen. Sherman, then in Savannah. 'Should 3^ou capture 
Charleston, I hope that by some accident the place may 
be destroyed; and if a little salt should be sown upon its 
site it may prevent the growth of future crops of nullifi- 
cation and secession.' On the 24th of December, 1864, 
Gen. Sherman made the following answer: ' I will bear 
in mind your hint as to Charleston, and don't think 
''salt" will be necessary. When I move, the Fifteenth 
Corps will be on the right of the right wing, and their 
position will bring them naturally into Charleston first, 
and if you have watched the history of that corps you 
will have remarked that they generally do their work 
up pretty well. The truth is, the whole army is burning 
with an insatiable desire to wreak vengeance upon South 
Carolina. I almost tremble at her fate, but feel that she 
deserves all that seems in store for her. -^^ * * I look 
upon Columbia as quite as bad as Charleston!' There- 
fore, Columbia was burned to ashes. And though he 
knew what was in store for South Carolina, so horrible 
that even he trembled, he took no steps to avert it, for 
he felt that she deserved it all. Did she, indeed? What 
crime had she committed that placed her outside the 



SHERMAN AND CORNWAI.LIS IN NORTH CAROLINA. I95 

protection of the law of civilized nations? What unjust 
and barbarous or brutal conduct had she bee-u guilty of 
to bring her within the exceptions laid down by the 
writers on the laws of war as authorizing extraordinary 
severity of punishment? They are not even imputed to 
her. South Carolina's crime and the crime of all the 
seceding States was that of a construction of the consti- 
tution of the United States, differing from that of Gen. 
Sherman and the Fifteenth Corps, which * always did its 
work pretty well.' 

'^Happily, the Divine Goodness has made the powers 
of recuperation even superior to those of destruction; 
and though their overthrow was so complete that *salt' 
was not needed as the type of utter desolation, yet 
Marietta and Atlanta are thriving and prosperous cities; 
and Columbia has once more resumed her poetic name — 
the city of roses; and but recently I read, with satisfac- 
tion, that the good old town of Fayetteville is fast 
rebuilding her factories, and boasts of having but lately 
recovered much of her ancient trade. 

''I mean further to contrast this march to the sea with 
the opinions of the great American writer on interna- 
tional law. Chancellor Kent. Treating of plunder on 
land and depredations on private property, he says: 
(part I, sec. 5.) 'Such conduct has been condemned in 
all ages, by the wise and the virtuous, and it is usually 
punished severely by those commanders of disciplined 
troops who have studied war as a science, and are 
animated by a sense of duty or love of fame. '" '"^ * 
If the conqueror goes beyond these limits wantonly, or 



196 LIFE Of1»N. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

when it is not clearly indispensable to the just purposes 
of war, artd seizes private property of pacific persons 
for the sake of gain, and destroys private dwellings or 
public edifices devoted to civil purposes only, or makes 
war upon monuments of art and models of taste, he 
violates the modern usages of war, and is sure to meet 
with indignant resentment, and to be held up to the 
general scorn and detestation of the world.' If Kent, 
although studied by Gen. Sherman at West Point, be 
not a sufficient authority for his condemnation, let us try 
him by the opinion of Major-Gen. Halleck — the *salt' 
suggester above referred to, and see what he says in his 
cooler moments concerning the rights of unarmed in- 
habitants during war. 

*'In his International Law and Laws of War, pub- 
lished in 1861, treating of the ancient practice which 
made all private property of the enemy subject to con- 
fiscation, he says: 'But the modern usage is not to touch 
private property on land without making compensation, 
except in certain specified cases. These exceptions may 
be stated under three general heads: First, confiscations 
or seizures by way of penalty for military offenses; 
second, forced contributions for the support of the in- 
vading army, or as an indemnit}/ for the expenses of 
maintaining order and affording protection to the con- 
quered inhabitants; and, third, property taken on the 
field of battle, or in storming a fortress or town.' 

* 'Again, the same author says (Chap. 19, page 451): 
'The evils resulting from irregular requisitions and for- 
aging for the ordinary supplies of an army are so very 



SHERMAN AND CORNWALLIS IN NORTH CAROLINA. I97 

great, and so generally admitted, that it has become a 
recognized maxim of war, that the commanding officer 
who permits indiscriminate pillage, and allows the taking 
of private property without a strict accountability '" * * 
fails in his duty to his own government, and violates the 
usages of modern warfare. It is sometimes alleged, m 
excuse for such conduct, that the General is unable to 
restrain his troops; but, in the eye of the law, there is 
no excuse, for he who cannot preserve order in his army 
has no right to command it.' 

**Once more, let us bring this General to the test of 
the code, prepared for the government of the armies of 
the United States, by Frances Lieber: 

^'Section 20 reads as follows: 'Private property, 
unless forfeited by crimes or by offenses of the owner 
against the safety of the army or the dignity of the 
United States, and after due conviction of the owner by 
court martial, can be seized only by way of military 
necessity for the support or other benefit of the army or 
of the United States.' 

'^Section 24 reads : *Ail wanton violence com- 
mitted against persons in the invaded country; 
all destruction of property not commanded by the 
authorized officer; all robbery; all pillage or sack- 
ing, even after taking a place by main force; all rape, 
wounding, maiming or killing of such inhabitants, are 
prohibited under the penalty of death, or such other 
severe punishment as may seem adequate for the gravity 
of the offence.' 

**Section 27 reads as follows: 'Crimes punishable by 



198 LIFE OF GEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

all penal codes, such as arson, murder, maiming, 
assaults, highway robbery, theft, burglary, fraud, for- 
gery, and rape, if committed by an American soldier in 
a hostile country against its inhabitants, are not only 
punishable as at home, but in all cases in which death 
is not inflicted, the severer punishment shall be preferred, 
because the criminal has, as far as in him lay, prostituted 
the power conferred on a man of arms, and prostrated 
the dignity of the United States.' 

**One more short quotation from this code prepared by 
Dr. Lieber I will give, not so much for its authority as 
because it is so eminently ludicrous in the light of the 
way in which it was observed by Sherman's bummers. 
Listen — 

** Section 40: *It is the usage in European armies 
that money and all valuables on the person of a prisoner, 
such as w^atches or jewelry, as well as extra clothing, 
belong to the captor; but it distinguishes the army of 
the United States that the appropriation of such articles 
or money is considered dishonorable, and not suffered 
by the officers.' Ah! 

*'To the same effect are all the great writers on public 
law for more than two centuries back. Wolsey, Vattel 
Grotius, Puffendorf, Poison, Jomini, and the rest of them, 
almost without exception. In fact every one of any 
note condemns in unmistakable terms the destruction and 
indiscriminate pillaging of private property of unarmed 
people in time of war. Even the followers of Mahomet, 
cruel and blood-thirsty as they were, recognized to its 
full extent the justice and propriety of these principles. 



SHERMAN AND CORNWALLIS IN NORTH CAROLINA. I99 

The Caliph, Abubekr, in 634, when sending forth his 
generals to the conquest of Syria, gave them instructions 
which Gen. Sherman cannot read without a sense of 
shame. Abubekr, an old man, accompanied the army 
on foot on its first day's march, and when the blushing 
leaders attempted to dismount, says the historian, the 
Caliph removed their scruples by a declaration that 
those who rode and those who walked in the service of 
religion were equally meritorious. ^Remember,' said 
the successor of the Prophet to the chiefs of the Syrian 
army, that you are always in the presence of God, on 
the verge of death, in the assurance of judgment, and 
the hope of paradise. Avoid injustice and oppression, 
consult with your brethren and study to preserve the love 
and confidence of your troops. When you fight the 
battles of the Lord acquit yourselves like men, without 
turning your backs, but let not your victory be stained 
with the blood of women or children. Destroy no palm 
trees, nor burn any fields of corn. Cut down no fruit 
trees, nor do any mischief to cattle, only such as you 
kill to eat. When you make any covenant or article, 
stand to it, and be as good as your word. As you go 
on, you will find some religious persons who live retired 
in monasteries and propose to themselves to serve God 
in that way, let them alone, and neither kill them nor 
destroy their monasteries.' This is neither a bad expo- 
sition of the laws of war or of the principles of 
Christianity. 

**As far back in the history of our race as four hun- 
dred years B. C, the great Xenophon, in the Cyropedia, 



200 J.IFE OF gSt. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

puts in the mouth of his hero Cyrus, the Prince of 
Persia, an order directing that his army, when march- 
ing upon the enemy's borders, should not disturb the 
cultivators of the soil. Now let us draw the contrast in 
the conduct of Gen. Sherman and the Arab chieftain, 
who denied Christianity, and the old Greek pagan who 
had never heard of Christ. Let us take no Southern 
man's testimony ; there are plenty of honest and truthful 
soldiers of the Union, who were with the Federal army 
and served in its ranks, to tell all we want and more. 
This is what one of them says, writing of that cam- 
paign to the ** Detroit Free Press:" *'One of the most 
devilish acts of Sherman's campaign was the destruc- 
tion of Marietta. '''' ''' "^ The Military Institute, and 
such mills and factories as might be a benefit to Hood, 
could expect the torch, but Sherman was not content 
with that; the torch was applied to everything, even to 
the shanties occupied by the colored people. No 
advance warning was given. The first alarm was 
followed by the crackling of flames. Soldiers rode 
from house to house, entered without ceremony, and 
kindled fires in garrets and closets, and stood by to see 
that they were not extinguished." 

**Again, he says: *Had one been aole to climb to such 
a height, at Atlanta, as to enable him to see for forty 
miles around, the day Sherman marched out, he would 
have been appalled at the destruction. Hundreds of 
houses had been burned ; every rod of fence destroyed ; 
nearly every fruit tree cut down; and the face of the 
country so changed that one born in that section could 



SHERMAN AND CORNWALLIS IN NORTH CAROLINA. 20I 

scarcely recognize it. The vindictiveness of war would 
have trampled the very earth out of sight, had such a 
thing been possible.' 

** Again, he says: 'At the very opening of the cam- 
paign, at Dalton, the Federal soldiery had received 
encouragement to become vandals. Not one private 
soldier out of every forty turned robber or incendiary, 
but there were enough to cast a stigma on the whole. 
From Dalton to Atlanta every house was entered a dozen 
times over, and each new band of foragers robbed it of 
something. When there was nothing in the shape of 
money, provisions, jewelry or clothing left, the looters 
destroyed furniture, abused women and children, and 
ended by setting fire to the house. As these parties 
rode back to camp, attired in dresses and bonnets, and 
exhibiting the trophies of their raid, and nothing was 
said to them, others were encouraged to follow suit. 
The treatment of colored women was brutal in the ex- 
treme, and not a few of them died from the effects. One 
who has the nerve to sit down and listen to what they 
can tell will find his respect for the ignorant and savage 
Indians increased. But these were preparatory lessons. 
When Sherman cut loose from Atlanta, everybody had 
license to throw off restraint and make Georgia "drain 
the bitter cup." The Federal who wants to learn what it 
was to license an army to become vandals should mount 
a horse at Atlanta and follow Sherman's route for fifty 
miles. He can hear stories from the lips of women that 
would make him ashamed of the flag that waved over 
him as he went into battle. When the army had passed. 



202 LIFE OF^BKN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

nothing was left but a trail of desolation and despair. 
No house escaped robbery; no woman escaped insult; 
no building escaped the fire-brand, except by some 
strange interposition. War may license an army to 
subsist on the enemy, but civilized warfare stops at 
live-stock, forage and provisions. It does not enter the 
houses of the sick and helpless, and rob women of 
finger-rings and carry o£f their clothing. 

*Add to all these horrors that most merciless and 
inhuman order of expatriation, by which the entire 
population of Atlanta, of all ages, sex and conditions, 
were driven forth to the fields of a desolated country, or 
shipped ofT to the rear like cattle ; an order which was 
followed by the "deliberate burning of Atlanta" by 
Sherman's own account. But I have said enough about 
these horrors, for it is exceedingly unpleasant to speak 
of them. Yet they must be told, if for nothing else than 
to excite the execration of humane people, and they will 
be told more hereafter than ever before. It is not worth 
while to cry hush. The truth is entitled to be known.' " 

I have made this record of the Federal military opera- 
tions in Georgia and South Carolina, to show what con- 
sequences flowed from Johnston's removal from the 
x\rmy of Tennessee before Atlanta. 

It was said that he would not stop retreating, and that 
he would finally take refuge in the everglades, as 
Osceola had done before him. But even if this had 
been true, it was better to have kept the Army of Ten- 
nessee in hand, as he had done from Dalton to Atlanta, 
to confront Sherman and to control his movements, than 



SHERMAN AND CORNWALLIS IN NORTH CAROLINA. 203 

to send it off, leaving him absolutely unchecked and 
unmoderated. 

In justice to the administration at Richmond, it must 
be said that it held on to Johnston for a long time against 
a tremendous popular pressure, and in spite of a great 
popular clamor. Mr. Seddon, the Confederate Secre- 
tary of War, was a warm admirer of Johnston, and was 
his personal friend, with great confidence in his ability. 

Lee remonstrated against his removal, and the first 
order he issued in February, 1865, after he had been 
placed in command of all the armies of the Confederate 
States, was to assign Johnston to the command of the 
Army of Tennessee, and all the troops in Georgia, 
South Carolina and North Carolina. 

From the day Sherman started from Savannah, his 
movements were so well masked that the Confederate 
authorities could not decide where he intended to strike. 

At first Charleston was supposed to be his objective, 
but when he moved into Columbia it was understood 
that he was going by Charlotte, Salisbury, Greensboro, 
Danville, to unite with Grant. 

The movements at Newbern — repairing the railroad 
and arranging docks and wharves — if known, did not 
attract attention. But the whole month of January, 
1865, was employed putting Newbern into condition to 
be a great depot, and Schofield was promptly transpor- 
ted there, to be ready for Sherman when he approached 
Goldsboro. 

General Johnston was residing in Lincolnton, North 
Carolina, attending his wife, whose health was very in- 



204 LIFE OF (TEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

firm, where, on January 23, 1865, ^^^ received instru :tions 
by telegraph to report to General Lee at Petersburg, , 
recently appointed General-in-chief. A telegram from 
Gen. Lee, in anticipation of such a report to him, was 
received the same day. In it he directed him to assume 
command of the Army of Tennessee, and of all troops 
in South Carolina, Georgia and Florida, and to **concen- 
trate all available forces, and drive back Sherman." 
Beauregard had before then been in command of South 
Carolina and part of Florida and Georgia, and before 
accepting the command tendered, Johnston visited 
him in Charlotte, to ascertain if the arrangement was 
agreeable to him. 

Being assured by Beauregard that the feeble and 
precarious condition of his health made the order 
exceedingly satisfactory and desirable to him, Beaure- 
gard gave him a copy of a dispatch, which he had the 
day before addressed to General Lee, in which the same 
feeling was expressed. 

Relieved from all embarassment at superceding this 
illustrious soldier — his friend and comrade in two 
^ars — Johnston assumed the responsibility of the 
command, with a full sense that nothing was to be 
done, except to save the further effusion of blood, 
and secure the best terms for the States and the 
people of the South, that could be extorted from 
their adversaries. The trans - Mississippi was in 
the hands of the Federals. The fall of Atlanta had 
secured them all the States west of the Savannah and 
south of the Ohio. Sherman's march had crushed 



SHERMAN AND CORNWALLIS IN NORTH CAROLINA. 205 

South Carolina like an eggshell. Charleston, Wil- 
mington and Mobile had fallen, and the Confederacy 
was surrounded from Cape Charles, on the Chesapeake, 
to the Rio Grande with a cordon of fire and shot and 
shell. 

Under these circumstances, Johnston undertook the 
command. Flis orders were to concentrate the troops 
in his department and drive back Sherman. 

The Army of Tennessee — the ''^disjecta membra^'' of 
that gallant army he had led in glorious retreat from 
Dalton to Atlanta — after having been dashed to pieces 
on the rocks of Franklin and Nashville, was percolating, 
sifting through the country by skeleton brigades, regi- 
ments, batteries, to report to Beauregard in North 
Carolina. From Mississippi, where the fragments of 
Nashville had lodged, it was carried by rail to Augusta, 
Georgia; thence they marched northeast to Charlotte. 

Stevenson, Stewart and Lee, Cheatham, Wheeler and 
Battle, the knights of the crusade behind Sherman, 
were all moving as fast as they could, and men's legs 
would carry them into North Carolina, to rally to Beau- 
regard — the hero of Manassas and the defender of 
Charleston — to head off Sherman. 

Under orders, Johnston took up the flag and moved 
to the front. He had about five thousand men of the 
Army of Tennessee, and about eleven thousand who 
had been holding Charleston, under Hardee, and Wil- 
mington under Whiting. Sherman had seventy thousr 
and infantry and five thousand cavalry. 

The fragments of the Army of Tennessee in small 



206 LIFE o7"^9*»N, 



JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 



bodies were hastening through South Carohna, with no 
rations, no transportation, no ^ assistance from their 
government, to help Johnston and Beauregard to drive 
back the invader. 

It w^as a hopeless task, a duty absolutely without any 
chance of success to reward it, but these soldiers from 
Missouri, from Arkansas, from Texas, from west of the 
Mississippi, and from the other Southwestern States, 
marched, many of them, from luka, Mississippi, without 
arms, rations or pay, to Raleigh, North Carolina, to 
defend their country, and to do their duty. All hope of 
saving their cause was utterly lost. The reinstatement 
of Johnston had roused enthusiasm all through the 
Southwest, and the soldiers of the Army of Tennessee 
flocked to the standard of *'01d Joe," to stand by him 
to the last. 

They were largely without arms, and absolutely with- 
out wagons or transportation. Johnston was ordered to 
draw his supplies from the country, although he found 
in the principal railroad depots between Charlotte, Dan- 
ville and Weldon, rations for four months for sixty 
thousand men, which were reserved for the Army of 
Northern Virginia. 

Upon reporting to General Lee the condition of affairs 
in North Carolina, General Johnston suggested that 
all the troops in that State should be put under his 
command. 

This suggestion was adopted, and 8,000 men, under 
Bragg, near Goldsboro, were added to the force under 
his control. It is singular that Johnston had no certain 



SHERMAN AND CORNWALLIS IN NORTH CAROLINA. 207 

information of what troops were at Newbern, or what 
disposition there was of Federal troops in North Carohna. 

He says, that **the course of the Federal march from 
Winnsborough indicated that it would cross the Cape 
Fear at Fayetteville and there be joined by Schofield 
at Wilmington." But Schofield was then at Newbern. 

Leaving Beauregard to protect the line of railroad 
from Charlotte to Danville, Gen. Johnston selected 
Smithfield as the point of rendezvous for all his troops, 
and, on March 4, established his headquarters at Fay- 
etteville. Sherman's plan would not be developed until 
he approached the centre of the State, whether he pro- 
posed to march from Goldsboro directly on Petersburg, 
by way of Weldon, or whether by w^ay of Greensboro 
and Danville, to unite with Grant in Virginia. Inasmuch 
as the Wilmington & Weldon road was of little further 
use, for Wilmington and Charleston were in the posses- 
sion of the Federals, and could no longer supply Lee, 
it was most reasonable to conjecture that Sherman would 
take the Western line, break Lee's communication at 
Greensboro with the South, and then move on Burke- 
ville, where the railroad from Petersburg to Lynchburg 
crosses the railroad from Richmond to Danville, and 
thus cut Lee off from all railroad communication with 
Western North Carolina, Georgia, Southwestern Vir- 
ginia and East Tennessee. He would thus be effectually 
cooped up. 

Goldsboro is about sixty miles northeast from Fayette- 
ville and fifty miles southeast from Raleigh. Newbern 
is fifty miles east from Goldsboro. Smithfield is half 



208 LIFE OFT?«^. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

way between Goldsboro and Raleigh'. It was, therefore, 
the point from which Johnston could guard both, the 
road to Weldon and that to Raleigh. 

On the 6th of March, Gen. Bragg, at Goldsboro, re- 
ported that a large Federal force was advancing from 
Newbern, and was then but nine miles from Kinston. 
He asked that the troops just arrived at Smithfield from 
Charlotte be sent him, so he could attack. Major-Gen. 
D. H. Hill, who commanded the troops at Smithfield, 
was ordered to Bragg, and, on March 7, joined him at 
Kinston with about 2,000 men. 

Bragg at once attacked the enemy — three divisions 
under Major-Gen. Cox. He drove them three miles, 
capturing 1,500 prisoners and 3 field pieces, with little 
loss. 

On the loth of March, Bragg attempted to turn the 
Federal entrenchments, but was obliged to withdraw ; 
and though his actual loss in men was slight, his sub- 
stantial loss in morale^ which had been gained by their 
previous success, was great. 

Lieut.-Gen. Hampton, with Butler and Wheeler's 
divisions of cavalry, was in front and on the left of 
Sherman, who was moving in two columns about a 
day's march apart. 

Hardee was hard pushed to get through Cheraw, 
before Sherman reached there, and moved on to Fayette- 
ville, where he halted on the 9th and loth of March. 

High water in the Pedee forced Hampton far to the 
west, and, when he crossed the river, Sherman had 
passed it two days before and was then between him 
and Fayetteville. 



SHERMAN AND CORNWALLIS IN NORTH CAROLINA. 209 

He found Kilpatrick directly in his road, surprised 
him in his camp at daybreak on the loth, drove him 
into the swamp, where his people, rallied, and made a 
spirited attack on the Confederates, and eventually drove 
them off. Hampton and Wheeler thought the Federal 
loss much greater than theirs, although the}^ suffered a 
great deal. 

But the Confederate attack opened the road to Fay- 
etteville, where Hampton and Wheeler at once rejoined 
Hardee. 

Sherman's advance was then only seven miles from 
Fayetteville. Hardee crossed the Cape Fear and burnt 
the bridges, leaving Hampton to hold Sherman to some 
terms of moderation. 

On nth of March the cavalry advance of the Fed- 
erals charged the town with a squadron. Hampton 
was sitting on the piazza of the Tavern, with only his 
couriers about him ; as the commanding officer always 
will be sitting in a shady and cool place, when his 
adversary charges his pickets, and rides helter-skelter 
with them, through the reserve into the camp. 

One leap from the piazza to the saddle put Hampton 
armed for the onset, another half minute he and the 
couriers were riding down the Federal advance. Six 
men fell under Hampton's sabre in that ride. 

But the Confederate situation then was desperate. 
There was no hope. Everybody understood it — from 
the teamster with his team, to Gen. Johnston at head- 
quarters. 

The only thing left to be done by orave men was to 



2IO LIFE OF ^fiW^ JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

fight for terms. Everybody wanted peace, and knew 
that peace was about to come, but the Confederates 
fought for peace with honor, with law, not the peace of 
desolated Poland. 

No one understood this more perfectly than Gen. 
Johnston. He had Bragg's army, of North Carolina, of 
8,000, Hardee's of Charleston, of less than 10,000 men, 
Lieut. -Gen. Hampton, with the divisions of Major-Gens. 
M. C. Butler and Joseph Wheeler, 'held the cavalry of 
probably 3,000 men in the advance, and left flank of 
Sherman's columns. 

Sherman marched 70,000 seasoned infantry and 5,000 
fair cavalry in two columns, the heads of which were 
nearly a day's march apart. 

Therefore, if Johnston could club all his force and 
strike the head of one Federal column, he might do it 
such harm before the other got to it, as to produce 
pacific sentiments in the minds of the Federal au- 
thorities. A stout club, properly and seasonably used, 
has a most pacifying effect. 

Sherman had not yet developed whether he was to 
march direct on Raleigh or on Goldsboro. Wheeler was 
placed across the Raleigh road, and Butler on that to 
Goldsboro. On March 14th, Wheeler, entrenched at 
Silver Creek, easily drove back the cavalry advance of 
Sherman. But on March 15, the Fourteenth and 
Twentieth Corps pushed Wheeler out of the way, 
and pressed on toward Raleigh. 

Hardee had entrenched a position four miles south of 
Avery sboro, but the enemy forced him out by turning 



SHERMAN AND CORNWALLIS IN NORTH CAROLINA. 211 

his left. He fell back only four hundred yards, to a 
better position. This he held against repeated attacks 
during the day of March i6th, and at night, hours 
after the fighting had ceased, fell back to Elevation, a 
position near Smithfield, being informed by Hampton 
that Sherman was crossing above and below him. 

General Hardee reported that his loss was in killed, 
wounded and missing, about 500, and prisoners taken 
reported the Federal loss at over 3,000. The report of 
prisoners in battle is utterly unreliable, and no heed 
should be given to them. They are not first-class men. 
They have no opportunity for knowledge, and they are 
** rattled, "therefore, they are unreliable witnesses. But 
General Sherman reports his loss at 77 killed and 407 
wounded. 

Says Johnston, an acute judge of men and of soldiers: 
*«If that report is true, it proves that Sherman's army 
had been utterly demoralized by its course of life on 
Southern plantations. Those soldiers, when fighting 
between Dalton and Atlanta, could not have been 
driven back repeatedly, by a fourth of their number, with 
a loss so utterly insignificant. It is unaccountable, too, 
that the party fighting under cover, and holding its 
ground, should have 180 men killed; that, unsheltered 
and repulsed, but 77." 

Both statements may be correct. Generals often 
exaggerate the losses of their adversaries, but the 
official reports must approximate the truth. Johnston's 
people were fighting not for victory, nor for independ- 
ence; they were fighting for a ** settlement," as is the 
Southern vernacular. 



212 LIFE OF GEN^OSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

They were desperate men, and death had no terrors 
for them. On the other hand, Sherman's people had 
all the future before them — victory, glory, home, the 
applause of shouting multitudes, were all inducements 
not to get killed. The Confederate had a ruined life, a 
wasted home — perhaps a murdered wife and massacred 
babies — behind him. 

It is not impossible that he may have willingly given 
up a life without hope or prospect, and that the other 
side may have been more frugal. But it is true, as 
Johnston remarks, that plunder, license, lack of disci- 
pline, will take the soul out of soldiers in a two days' 
march. 

Curious it is, but a soldier must have some conscience, 
and soldiers without conscience are beasts — they will do 
what they are made to do, and nothing else. 

Napoleon said: * 'Bayonets think." It would have 
been better to say: ''Bayonets believe." For if bayo- 
nets do not believe, if they do not have faith in the 
justice of their side, they are worth little. Murder, 
rape, arson and robbery w^ill demoralize an army, and 
take all the fight out of it, sooner than a dozen defeats. 

The extraordinary morale of the Confederates was 
due to their sublime faith in their cause, their com- 
mander, and in themselves. On the retreat from Gett3^s- 
burg it was necessary to feed the rear guard, from Fair- 
field to Hagerstown, to send details from each regiment 
to gather rations. 

And on the march on July 5th, as the column marched 
along the road, men could occasionally be seen shooting 



SHERMAN AND CORNWALLIS IN NORTH CAROLINA. 213 

the cattle in the fields. The remark was constant in 
the ranks: **That's an outrage." That's no better than 
Yankees." * 'That's disgraceful to us." For the 
private soldier felt as high a sense of duty, of justice to 
himself, and his enemy, as Gen. Lee. Therefore, 
Johnston's observation was just. The robbers, thieves 
and murderers who marched into North Carolina in 
March, 1865, were not the same soldiers who had left 
Dalton the preceding spring. They had become bru- 
talized, demoralized. They would not face death, 
the way the soldiers of Missionary Ridge, of Resaca, 
of Kenesaw, would have done. Johnston appreciated 
this, and on it were based his hopes for a * 'settlement.'" 

On March 17 it was ascertained that the troops with 
which Hardee had been engaged the day before were 
not marching to Raleigh, but no definite information 
could be gained as to their destination. Hardee remained 
at Elevation to rest his people. 

At Smithfield, Bragg had Hoke, and his North Caro- 
linians, 4,775 effectives and Lieut.-Gen. Stewart's 3,950 
of the Army of Tennessee. 

On the i8th of March Johnston was informed that 
Sherman's right wing was marching on the direct road 
from Fayetteville to Goldsboro, and had crossed Black 
river, while his left wing on the road from Averysboro 
had not reached that stream, and was more^than a day's 
march from the road on the map, opposite Bentonville. 
That hamlet was about two miles to the north of the 
road, and sixteen from Smithfield. 

Accordmg to the old map of North Carolina they 



214 LIFE OF GEN^ JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

were obliged to use, the roads were about twelve miles 
apart. According to the cavalry reports the Federal 
right wing was half a day's march ahead of the left, 
and, according to the map, the roads they were on were 
twelve miles apart. 

Johnston clubbed his force and ordered the troops 
from Elevation and Smithfield to concentrate at Benton- 
ville, so as to mash up Sherman's left column before his 
right could get up to him. 

But the map deceived them. Instead of Elevation, 
Hardee's position, according to the map, being only 12 
miles from Bentonville, it was too great to be made by 
Hardee in one day, and the distance between the roads 
was much less than the map represented it; so, while 
Hardee could not get up in time, the Federals could and 
did. Hardee got up to Bentonville next morning, and 
Johnston threw his troops across the path of the advanc- 
ing Federal left wing. Hardee with 9,500, Bragg and 
Stewart with 5,600, total 14,100, in front of 35,000 men; 
nearly three to one. 

As Hampton rode down the line which he was estab- 
lishing, he heard one of the South Carolinans say to 
another, lying down on the sedge grass, '<The old man 
is playing a pretty stiff bluff, but some of them times 
these Yankees will call him, and then look out! " 
Hampton rSde on with a grim chuckle at the sort of 
hand he was bluffing with. 

The Federals deployed as soon as they felt the ob- 
struction in their way, and moved vigorously on the 
Confederate line. This advanced at once, and drove 



SHERMAN AND CORNWALLIS IN NORTH CAROLINA. 215 

the Federal line back over its first line of light entrench- 
ments, thrown up in the woods, and Lieut.-Gen. Hardee, 
leading the infantry charge, leaped his horse over the 
second line and captured it. The woods were so thick 
that no orderly advance could be made, and the Con- 
federates held the field until their wounded could be 
removed; after which, after nightfall, they fell back to 
the position from which they had moved in the morning. 
Four pieces of artillery were taken, but one piece w^as 
left on the ground for lack of horses to haul it off. 

Early on the morning of March 20, the Federal right 
wing, which had left the Fayetteville road to Goldsboro, 
crossed to that to Averysboro, and rapidly attacked 
Hoke's division, which was in rear. Hampton immedi- 
ately put Butler's and Wheeler's divisions of cavalry 
into position to help to hold Hoke's line, and together, 
the cavalry, and the North Carolinians stood the Federals 
off, for the rest of the day, against repeated attacks. 
All day of March 21 the Confederates held their position 
against repeated and resolute attacks. Lieut.-Gen. 
Hardee's son, a boy of 16, fell in the first set of *'fours" 
of the Eighth Texas cavalry, with whom he was charg- 
ing. During the night of March 22, the troops were 
withdrawn to Smithfield. Johnston's loss in the three 
days' fighting was 223 killed, 1,467 wounded, and 653 
missing — total 2,343, out of a total of 14,000 engaged. 

It is supposed that the Federal loss largely exceeded 
4,000. 

After Schofield joined Sherman at Goldsboro — after 
the battle of Bentonville — ^Johnston placed himself in 



2l6 LIFE OF gISII^ 



JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON, 



such a position as to observe the roads to Richmond 
via Weldon, or by Raleigh, Greensboro and Danville, 
and at the same time to be in position to join hands with 
Lee, in case he should determine to let go Richmond, 
and joining Johnston, fall on Sherman before Grant 
could get up. 

As soon as Johnston was assigned by Lee to the com- 
mand of North Carolina, and the duty of ** driving back 
Sherman," he had been incessant in representing to his 
superior officer, that the only chance to save the Confed- 
eracy was for Lee to unite with him, and first defeat 
Sherman, and then Grant. 

To the last moment Johnston was not without hopes 
that his strategy would be followed. But Lee knew 
better than he did. He couldn't let go Grant. Grant 
held him tight. The moment he marched out of the 
lines at Petersburg, Grant's strong cavalry horses would 
flank him. Grant's strong artillery horses would out- 
march him, and he would be destroyed, just as he was 
destroyed a month afterward, in his vain attempt to 
reach Danville to join Johnston. 

But Johnston certainly did not understand to what 
straits his comrade, friend, and commanding officer, was 
reduced. He argued the question as if it was a matter 
of volition. 

On April 5, he received the press dispatch that the 
Administration had caused the evacuation of Richmond 
on the 2d. 

Johnston supposed that they had adopted his ideas, 
and were moving to join him. He heard from Brig.- 



SHERMAN AND CORNWALLIS IN NORTH CAROLINA. 217 

Gen. W. H. Walker, at Danville, on April 7, and 
Col. Jno. Taylor Wood, the President's aid, on the 8th, 
at Greensboro, but there was no news of Lee's army, 
and nothing in these dispatches to suggest the idea that 
Lee had been driven from his lines. 

On March 22, Schofield jomed Sherman at Golds- 
boro with the Twenty-third Corps. The railroad to 
Newbern was in running order, and supplies were 
rapidly brought to him. 

He had no apprehension then of being stopped by 
Lee and Johnston combined, for he had with his colors 
full 93,000 fighting men, and the whole Army of 
Northern Virginia, with the Army of North Carolina, 
could not have barred his way. 

On March 25th, Sherman started by rail to Newbern, 
and thence by steamer to City Point, Virginia, for an 
interview with Grant, reaching Fortress Monroe on 27th. 
He reached City Point the same afternoon, and found 
President Lincoln there. That night and the next day 
was spent in going over the whole situation. Sherman 
was anxious that Lee should remain where he was until 
he, Sherman, could get to Burkeville, when Lee 
would have to starve, or come out of his entrenchments 
and fight Grant and him combined. 

The two Generals expected another battle would be 
necessary to finish up the war, but the President depre- 
cated more bloodshed. *'His mind," says Sherman, 
*'was all ready for the civil organization of officers at 
the South," and he authorized Sherman to assure Gov. 
Vance, and the people of North Carolina, that as soon 



2l8 LIFE OF GEW. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

as the Rebel armies laid down dieir arms, and resumed 
their civil pursuits, they would aJt once be guaranteed 
all their rights, as citizens of a common country, and 
that, to avoid anarchy, the State government then in 
existence, with their civil functionaries, would be recog- 
nized by him as the government defacto until Congress 
could provide others.'^' 

They parted at noon, March 28th. Sherman reached 
Newbern, March 30th, and Goldsborough the same 
evening. 

By the 5th of April he was ready to move, and issued 
his confidential order to his army commanders, that the 
next move was to place the army north of the Roanokei^ 
facing west, with its base of supplies at Norfolk, or on 
the Chow^an, and in full communication with the Army 
of the Potomac at Petersburg. The march was to 
begin in earnest on March 12. But the news of the fall 
of Richmond reached him on April nth, and Sherman 
appointed April 12th to move direct on Raleigh, pre- 
pared to follow^ Johnston wherever he might go. 

On the 9th, Johnston still had no definite information 
as to the condition of affairs in Virginia. On the lOth 
Johnston moved back to Raleigh, wdth Sherman about 
twenty-five miles in his rear. At one o'clock next 
morning, in his camp at Battles Bridge, over the Neuse, 
he received a telegram from President Davis, dated 
Danville, the evening before, informing him that an 
unofficial report had just reached him that Lee had 
surrendered the day before — April 9th. 



'Memoirs, Vol. II, p. 327. 



SHERMAN AND CORNWALLIS IN NORTH CAROLINA. 219 

The Confederates reached Raleigh during the after- 
noon of the nth. During that same night, Sherman, at 
Smithfield, received a message from Grant, informing 
him of Lee's surrender. 

He published it in a general order to his troops the next 
morning, and, of course, it invigorated and refreshed 
them more than anything else could have done. He 
reached Raleigh the next day, and again announced to 
his troops his plans — that his next move would be to 
Ashboro to cut off Johnston's retreat southward. 

Thus matters stood, when on April 14, Kilpatrick 
reported from Durham Station, twenty-six miles up the 
North Carolina Railroad, that a flag of truce had come 
in with a package from Gen. Johnston, addressed to 
Sherman. 

The Confederates continued their retreat toward 
Hillsboro and Greensboro, and on the evening of the 
nth. Gen. Johnston received an order by telegraph 
from President Davis at Greensboro, directing him to 
report there in person without delay. 

He reached that place on the morping of April 12, 
and went at once to Beauregard's quarters in a railroad 
car. In an hour or two the Generals were summoned 
to meet President Davis, with whom they found Messrs. 
Benjamin, Secretary of State; Mallory, Secretary of 
War, and Reagan, Postmaster-General. 

Mr. Davis was eager to continue the war. He stated 
that in two or three weeks he would have a large army 
in the field, by bringing back those who had deserted, 
and gone home, and by calling out those liable to con 



220 LIFE OF G^^^k JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

scription, whom the conscript officers had been unable to 
obtain. The Generals remarked that it was unlikely 
that those who had deserted, and who would not join, 
when circumstances were more favorable, could be 
expected to come forward now when circumstances were 
desperate. 

And so the conference was adjourned until Gen. 
Breckenridge, the Secretary of War, should arrive, 
who was expected that evening, with certain news from 
Virginia. 

Gens. Johnston and Beauregard, comparing views of 
the situation, concluded that. the Confederacy was over- 
thrown, and that the only thing left was to make terms. 
And when Breckenridge arrived, Johnston presented 
this conclusion to him, and said that the only power left 
President Davis was that of terminating the war, and 
that this power should be exercised without more delay. 

Mr. Mallory, in conversation, agreed wath Gen. John- 
ston. The next day, by Breckenridge 's arrangement, 
Johnston and Beauregard were summoned to President 
Davis, where they presented a comparison of the military 
forces of the two sides. The Confederates had an army 
of 20,000 infantry and artillery, and 5,000 cavalry. The 
United States had Grant's army of 180,000, Sherman's 
of 110,000, and Canby's of 60,000 — odds of 14 to one. 

Johnston represented that under such circumstances it 
would be the greatest of human crimes to attempt 
to continue the war ; for having neither money nor credit, 
nor arms but those in the hands of our soldiers, nor 
ammunition but that in their cartridge boxes, nor shops 



SHERMAN AND CORNWALLIS IN NORTH CAROLINA. 221 

for repairing arms or fixing ammunition, the effect of 
our keeping the field would be, not to harm the enemy, 
but to complete the devastation of our country and ruin 
of its people. He therefore urged that the President 
should exercise at once the only function of government 
still in his possession, and open negotiations for peace.* 

Mr. Davis requested the members of the Cabinet 
present to express their opinions. Breckenridge, Mal- 
lory and Reagan agreed with Johnston. Benjamin was 
for war, and made a speech, says Johnston, much like 
that of Sempronius in Addison's play. Mr. Davis said 
it was idle for him to attempt to negotiate, for the other 
side had repeatedly refused to recognize him. 

Johnston suggested that it had not been unusual for 
military commanders to initiate negotiations upon which 
treaties of peace were founded, and proposed that he be 
allowed to address Gen. Sherman on the subject. 

The President agreed that Johnston should address a 
proposition to Sherman for an armistice to enable the 
civil authorities to agree upon terms of peace. 

He dictated such a letter, which was reduced to 
writing by Mr. Mallory, signed by Johnston, and at 
once dispatched to Sherman. 

It was in these words : 

April 13, 1865. 

**The results of the recent campaign in Virginia have 
changed the relative military condition of the belig- 
erents. I am, therefore, induced to address you in this 
form, the inquiry whether to stop the further effusion of 
blood and devastation of property, you are willing to 
make a temporary suspension of active operation?, and 

* Johnston's Narrative, p. 398. 



222 LIFE OF GBW, JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

to communicate to Lieut. -Gen Grant, commanding the 
armies of the United States, the request that he will take 
like action in regard to other armies, the object being to 
permit the civil authorities to enter into the needful 
arrangements to terminate the existing war." 

This is the letter of which Kilpatrick sent Sherman 

notice. 

On the 14th Sherman received the letter and replied 

at once: 

Headquarters Military Division of ) 

THE Mississippi, > 

In the Field, Raleigh, April 14, 1865. ) 

Gen. Jos. E. Johnston, 

Commanding Confederate Army: 

General — I have this moment received your communi- 
cation of this date. I am fully empowered to arrange 
with you any terms for the suspension of further hostili- 
ties between the armies commanded by you, and those 
commanded by myself, and will be willing to confer 
with you to that end. 

I wall limit the advance of my main column to-morrow^ 
to Morrisville, and the cavalry to the University, and 
expect that you will also maintain the present position 
of your forces, until each has notice of a failure to agree. 

That a basis of action may be had, I undertake to 
abide by the same terms and conditions, as were made 
by Gens. Grant and Lee at Appomattox court-house, on 
the 9th instant, relative to our two armies, and, further, 
to obtain from Gen. Grant an order to suspend the move- 
ments of any troops, from the direction of Virginia. 
Gen. Stoneman is under my commmand, and my order 
will suspend any devastation or destruction contemplated 
by him. I will add that I really desire to save the 
people of North Carolina the damage they would 
sustain by the march of this army through the central or 
western parts of the State. 

I ^m, with respect, your obedient servant, 

W. T. S HERMAN- Ma] or- General 



SHERMAN AND CORNWALLIS IN NORTH CAROLINA. 223 

It was arranged that the two Generals should meet on 
the 17th at a point midway betw^een Sherman's advance at 
Durhams and Johnson's rear at Hillsborough. Just as 
Sherman was about to start for this meeting, the telegraph 
operator, whose office was up-stairs in the depot building, 
came running into Gen. Sherman's car and told him he 
was just receiving an important dispatch in cypher 
which it was necessary for the General to see before he 
left. This was at 8 o'clock on the morning of the 17th. 
Sherman held the train for half an hour, when the 
operator returned with the message translated and 
transcribed. 

It was from Stanton informing him of the assassina- 
tion of Lincoln, April 14, the attempt on the life of Mr. 
Seward and son, and a suspicion that a like fate was 
designed for Gen. Grant, and -all the principal officers of 
the government. 

After charging the man to keep this news absolutely 
to himself until the General's return, he proceeded to 
Durham's, and riding out on the road probably five 
miles, met ^ Imston, where they had a private confer- 
ence, at the house of a gentleman named Bennet. 

The first thing Sherman did was to show Johnston the 
dispatch announcing Lincoln's assassination. It dis- 
tressed him inexpressibly. Large drops of perspiration, 
Sherman says, burst out on his forehead, and he 
denounced the act as a disgrace to the age, and hoped 
that Sherman did not charge it to the Canfederate 
Government. 

Sherman assured him **that he did not believe that he 



224 LIFE OF LB^ JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

or Gen. Lee or the officers of the Confederate Army 
could possibl}^ be privy to acts of assassination," but he 
**would not say as much for Jeff Davis, George Sanders, 
and men of that stripe." Sherman urged Johnston to 
surrender on Grant's terms to Lee. 

Johnston insisted that they ought to make arrange- 
ments for all the Confederate armies. That he could 
procure authority to control all of them, and that in addi- 
tion to providing for the laying down their arms, they 
must be secured in their personal property and political 
rights. Sherman then told Johnston of his recent 
interview with President Lincoln and General Grant, 
and assured him that he was perfectly and fully 
informed as to the views of the President of the United 
States, and that he had authority to arrange with John- 
ston on the terms stated and requested b}^ him. It was 
agreed that Johnston should return to his lines, and get 
authority to arrange for all the Confederate armies, and 
that they would meet again the ne±t day at the same 
place. 

After some discussion, Johnston brought Brecken- 
ridge into the conference, and a messenger, having 
brought a package to Johnston, he opened it, and, after 
a side talk with Breckenridge, handed one of the papers 
from it to Sherman. It was, says Sherman, the draft in 
Reagan's handwriting of the terms, and began with a 
preamble so long and ' verbose, that Sherman at once 
rejected it. 

**Then," says- he, *^recalling the conversation with 
Mr. Lincoln at City Point, I sat down at the table and 



/ 



SHERMAN AND CORNWAI.LIS IN NORTH CAROT.INA. 225 

wrote off the terms, which I thought concisely expressed 
his views and wishes, and explained that I was willing 
to submit these terms to the new President, Mr. John- 
son, provided that both armies should remain in statu 
quo until the truce therein declared should expire. I 
had full faith that General Johnston would religiously 
respect the truce, v/hicli he did. And that / should be 
the gainer ^f or in the few days it would take to send the 
papers to Washington and receive an answer^ I could 
fiiiisJi the railroad to Raleigh^ and be the better prepared 
for a long chase y^' 

This is General Sherman's idea of preserving the 
status quo, and religiously respecting the truce. 

* 'Neither Mr. Breckenridge nor General Johnston 
wrote one word of that paper. I wrote it myself and 
announced it as the best I could do, and they readily 
assented, "t 

This paper is known as the ''Convention at Dur- 
ham's." 



*\iemoirs, Vol. II, p. 353. 
tNie.noirs, Vol. II, p. 353. 



226 LIFE OF"^?!!^ JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

THE CONVENTION AT DURHAM'S. 

T^HE paper signed is in these words : Memorandum 
-■' or basis of agreement made this i8th day of 
April, 1865, near Durham's Station, in the State of 
North Carolina, by and between Gen. Joseph E. John- 
ston, commanding the Confederate Army, and Major- 
Gen. W. T. Sherman, commanding the Army of the 
United States, in North Carolina, both present: 

1 . The contending armies now in the field to maintain 
the statu quo until notice is given by the commanding 
General of any one, to its opponent, and reasonable 
time, say forty-eight hours, allowed. 

2. The Confederate armies now in existence to be 
disbanded, and conducted to their several State capitals, 
there to deposit their arms and public property in the 
State arsenal ; and each officer and man to execute and 
file an agreement, to cease from acts of war, and to 
abide the action of the State and Federal authority. 
The number of arms and munitions of war to be reported 
to the chief of ordnance at Washington city, subject to the 
future action of the Congress of the United States, and 
in the meantime to be used solely to maintain peace and 
order within the borders of the States respectively. 

3. The recognition by the Executive of the United 
States, of the several State governments, on their officers 
and Legislatures taking the oath prescribed by the Con- 
stitution of the United States, and where conflicting 
State governments have resulted from the war, the 



THE CONVKNTION AT DURHAM S. 227 

legitimac}^ of all shall be submitted to the Supreme 
Court of the United States. 

4. The re-establishment of all the Federal courts in 
the several States, with powers, as defined by the 
Constitution of the United States, and of the States 
respectively. 

5. The people and inhabitants of all the States to be 
guaranteed, so far as the Executive can, their political 
rights and franchises, as well as their rights of person 
and property^ as defined by the Constitution of the 
United States, and of the States rsepectively. 

6. The Executive authority of the government of the 
United States not to disturb any of the people by reason 
of the late war, so long as they live in peace and quiet, 
abstain from acts of armed hostility, and obey the laws 
in existence at the place of their residence. 

7. In general terms — the war to cease — a general 
amnesty, so far as the Executive of the United States 
can command, on condition of the disbandment of the 
Confederate armies, the distribution of the arms, and 
the resumption of peaceful pursuits, by the officers and 
men hitherto composing said armies. 

Not being fully empowered by our respective prin- 
cipals to fulfill these terms, we, individually and officially^ 
pledge ourselves to promptly obtain the necessar}^ 
authority, and to carry out the above programme. 

W. T. Sherman, 

Major- General^ Commanding Army of the 
United States , in North Carolina. 
J. E. Johnston, 
General^ Commanding Confederate States 
Army in North Carolina. 



228 LIFE OF Ge"^. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

Sherman says he wrote every word of this paper. 
Johnston says Sherman wrote it very rapidly, with 
Johnston's memorandum lying on the table before him, 
as if he had come prepared to make that arrangement. 

In the discussion, Johnston's point had been a general 
disarmament of the Confederate armies, and, in con- 
sideration of that, a general amnesty by the President of 
the United States. 

The proposition to guarantee to the Confederates all 
their rights of private property as defined by the State 
constitutions^ came from Sherman, as far as can be under- 
stood from Johnston's Narrative and Sherman's Memoirs. 
What he meant by it is impossible to say, for it was a 
distinct promise to protect property in slaves, which had 
already been destroyed by the proclamation of Mr. 
Lincoln, as far as any executive act could destroy it. 

In fact it is difficult to understand Gen. Sherman's 
position about this convention, "every word of which he 
wrote himself." Johnston nor Breckenridge did not 
write a word of it. 

Johnston, who was only a plain Virginia gentleman, 
and a soldier trained in the traditions of the old army of 
the United States, evidently took the agreement to be 
serious, and that he was bound by it. 

When he pledged himself, in the first article, that the 
armies should maintain the status quo during the truce, 
he really believed that his honor was pledged to do so, 
and he religiously did as he had promised. 

Sherman, however, did not take it so seriously, but 
strained every effort to complete the railroad from 



THE CONVENTION AT DURHAM S. 229 

Goldsboro to Raleigh, so that if he was obHged to follow 
Johnston toward the West or Southwest, his commu- 
nications with his base at Newbern being thus perfected, 
would give him an enormous advantage. His idea of 
the status quo seems to have been to employ the truce in 
bettering his condition as much as possible. 

Johnston believed that when he pledged himself offi- 
cially and personally to obtain the necessary authority to 
make the agreement, and to carry out the programme, 
that his honor as a soldier and a gentleman was involved 
and he, without an hour's delay, applied to President 
Davis for ratification of this action and approval of the 
convention. 

Such a pledge sat more lightly on Gen. Sherman's 
mind, for, he said, "he wrote to Gen. Grant and the 
Secretary of War, submitting the agreement for their 
action, and the letters fully explained that the military 
situation was such that the delay was an advantage to 
us. I cared little whether they were approved, modified 
or disapproved in toto. I only wanted instructions." 

This was like his observing the truce, by repairing his 
railroad. He pledged himself as a man, and as a soldier, 
to obtain the approval of his superiors, and then writes 
them that the delay was helping him, and their approval 
was a matter of no consequence. 

The convention was signed April i8, 1865. Sherman 
sent a staff officer off at once by Newbern and Morehead 
to Washington, and who returned to Raleigh on 24th, 
bringing Gen. Grant, accompanied by one or two officers 
of his staff. 



230 LIFE OF (?Bt^ JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

It cannot be understood from the memoirs of Sherman 
or Grant how far this Durham's station convention was 
meant to be serious, or only a trap to catch Johnston. 

It was certainly a wise, statesmanlike and patriotic 
measure, and if ^*the programme" had been carried out, 
would have saved the country twenty years of dis- 
order, turmoil and disturbed society. The troops 
marched to their respective homes by their own com- 
mands, the State government of the people recognized, 
the Union would have been restored, their relations to 
the Federal government would have been re-established, 
their own leaders would have represented them in the 
Congress, and peace and order would have been estab- 
lished at once. Instead of that, the Revolutionary 
Reconstruction Legislation of Congress actually re- 
versed society, and put on top those classes who every- 
where are at the bottom of the social structure, and in 
the operation of nature, by which the proper organiza- 
tion of society was restored, much suffering was caused, 
and bitter feelings created. The experience has been 
beneficial to the Confederates. The trials and ordeal 
through which they have passed, have been beneficial to 
them, but probably the whole country would have been 
better off if the convention at Durham had been ratified, 
and **the programme" carried out. But in the govern- 
ment at Washington there had always been a jealousy 
of the military power, and a vague uneasiness about a 
dictatorship. 

Mr. Seward was a philosophic student of history, Mr. 
Sumner was a scholar. Secretary Chase was a man of 



THE CONVENTION AT DURHAM S. 23 1 

great intellectual force and acquirements, and Mr. 
Stanton was the Danton of that revolution. 

It may be, that, perfectly conscious that they had 
overturned Constitutional government, and were con- 
ducting a great revolution, in defiance of all the safe- 
guards of public liberty and private right, they felt that 
the time might easily come when they would be over- 
turned by the ''man on horseback." Thus Cromwell, 
backed by the army, had dissolved Parliament. Thus 
Napoleon, with the guards, had dispersed the Assembly 
in France. For several years, it is apparent there was 
a cloud hanging over the politicians at Washington — a 
cloud of apprehension of the dictator. This was at the 
bottom of the jealousy of McClellan, of the early snub- 
bing of Grant in the West, and the squelching of 
Sherman, by Stanton, about the Durham convention. 

During the summer of 1861, and the winter of 1861- 
62, there was much discussion among the Confederate 
officers at Fairfax Courthouse and Centerville. Among 
them were several who had known McClellan inti- 
mately, from his West Point days, who had served 
with him in Mexico and in garrison since, who knew 
the fibre of his mind — the tendency of his thoughts, his 
feelings, his sympathies and his ambitions. They 
knew McClellan to be extremely ambitious, and with 
an appreciation of his own capacity by no means 
moderate. 

An idea got about, I can give no authority, can refer 
to no record, but an idea floated around the army, 
division and brigade headquarters of Johnston's army of 



232 LIFE OF «^^. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

the Potomac, that McClellan was organizing that grand 
army until he had it sufficiently in hand; when he 
would propose a truce to Johnston, in order that they, 
two, at the head of these armies, might make peace and 
restore the Union and compel their respective govern- 
ments to ratify and accept their settlement. 

No one believed that Johnston would not resent such 
an idea, but officers who knew McClellan well and who 
had been more intimate with him than any of those who 
were with the Federal side, believed such a thing not 
impossible with him. 

I do not wish to do him an injustice, for he was an 
honorable, chivalric, high-minded solder, but I show 
what views some of his antagonists held about him. 

I believe the same opinions were entertained in Mr. 
Lincoln's cabinet, .and they were particularly careful 
that the army should be kept in strict subordination to 
the civil authority. 

The tramp of the coming horseman was always 
sounding in their ears. So when Grant telegraphed Mr. 
Lincoln, March 3d, for permission to meet Lee, and 
treat for peace, Lincoln promptly answered him that 
treating for peace was none of his business, that he was 
not to interfere with any political question, but to confine 
himself entirely to military matters. 

When, therefore, Sherman undertook to negotiate a 
treaty of peace, which fixed the legal status of States 
and of people, here was the dictator sure enough, they 
thought. 

Lincoln had been assassinated. Andrew Johnson, the 



THE CONVENTION AT DURHAM S. 233 

new president, crazed by terror; and here was the victor 
of a hundred fields, having a veteran army of 100,000 
men, ready to march to Washington, and impose his terms 
on President Johnson, as he had done on General 
Johnston. 

The panic was puerile, but it was real, and Sherman's 
act was repudiated in a manner, the most mortifying to 
him, and humiliating to the army. 

The manner of doing this was intended to break the 
force of Sherman's position before the American people. 
In a bulletin given to the press, signed by Stanton, 
Secretary of War, it was mtimated that Sherman had 
made a bargain with President Davis, in consideration 
of the President of the Confederacy dividing, with the 
General of the Federal Army, the gold which he was 
carrying off, that the Confederate should be allowed to 
escape. 

And the same people published a proclamation to the 
world, charging Jefferson Davis with being accessory 
to the murder of Abraham Lincoln. A charge which 
no one believed at the time, never has been believed 
since, and which stands to-day unretracted in the 
archives of the United States. 

Orders were issued to the armies in the South not to 
obey Sherman."^ 

They sent Grant back from Washington to take 
charge of Sherman's army, and if necessary, to take 
command of it.f 

Sherman notified Johnston of the rejection of the 

*Grant's Memoirs, Vol. II, p. 516. 
tGrant's Memoirs, Vol. II, p. 516. 



234 LIFE OF .^^N. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

convention, and under Grant's dictation, demanded 
Johnston's surrender upon the terms granted by Grant 
to Lee at Appomattox court-house/ 

Now occurs another incident which shocks us, and 
will shock posterity more than any breach of faith con- 
nected with this negotiation. 

By the convention at Durham's, April i8 (Section 7), it 
was agreed that there should be **universal amnesty, so 
far as the Executive of the United States can command." 

The Executive of the United States had complete 
control of an amnesty, for no one could be punished, 
whom he chose to pardon. 

This agreement was signed by General Sherman on 
the 1 8th. He was notified of its rejection by his gov- 
ernment on the 24th, and on the •25th wrote General 
Grant: 

*'As to punishment for past crimes, that is for the 
judiciary, and can in no ways be disturbed by our acts; 
and so far as I can, I zvill use my influence that Rebels 
shall suffer all the personal punishment prescribed by 
law, as also the civil liabilities arising from their past 
acts.'"^ 

The next day he made this new agreement with 
Johnston, who knew nothing as to how Sherman had 
been preserving the status quo, under the truce, by 
repairing the railroads, and of course could know 
nothing of the letter to Grant of the . preceding day, 
promising to use his influence to have Johnston, Ex- 
Quartermaster-General of the Army of the United 
States, hung. 

♦Memoirs, Vol. II, p. 361. 



THE CONVENTION AT DURHAM S. 235 

The new agreement was : 

Terms of a Military Convention, entered into this 
26th day of April, 1865, at Bennett's House, near 
Durham's Station, North Carolina, between General 
Joseph E. Johnston, commanding the Confederate 
Army, and Major-General W. T Sherman, command- 
ing the United States Army in North Carolina. 

1. All acts of war, on the part of the troops under 
General Johnston's command, to cease from this date. 

2. All arms and public property to be deposited at 
Greensboro, and delivered to an ordnance officer of the 
United States Army. 

3. Rolls of all the officers and men to be made in 
duplicate, one copy to be retained by the com- 
mander of the troops, and the other to be given to an 
officer, to be designated by Gen. Sherman. Each 
officer and man to give his individual obligation in 
writing not to take up arms against the Government of the 
United States, until properly released from this obligation. 

4. The side arms of officers, and their private horses 
and baggage, to be retained by them. 

5. This being done, all the officers and men will be 
permitted to return to their homes, not to be disturbed by 
the Ufiited States authorities^ so long as they observe 
their obligation and the laws in force where they may 
reside. W. T. Sherman, 

Major- General^ Commanding United States 

Forces in North Carolina. 

J. E. Johnston, 

General^ Commanding Confederate States 

Forces in North Carolina. 

Approved: U. S. Grant, 

Lieutenant- General. 



236 LIFE OF ^?!l^^OSEPH E JOHNSTON. 

Stanton's bulletin, insinuatnig that Sherman was let- 
ting Davis off for a share of his plunder, was intended 
to insult and degrade Sherman. It was an outrage on 
a soldier, and an infamy on a gentleman. 

But it was not as severe as the record Sherman makes 
for himself. One day he wrote to his superior officer 
pledging himself to use his influence that rebels shall 
suffer all the personal punishment prescribed by law, as 
also the civil liabilities, arising from their past acts. 

The personal punishment prescribed by law was 
hanging; the civil liabilities were confiscation of all the 
property of the rebels. When Gen. Sherman the next 
day made the agreement with Gen. Johnston, he said: 
**If you will stop fighting and disarm your people I will 
guarantee that you may go home and live undisturbed." 
And to Grant he said: **As soon as I get these people 
disarmed, I'll have as many of them hung as possible, 
and will confiscate their property." It was another 
application of the law of prize, as sought to be applied 
to the Savannah cotton. 

Stanton's insinuation against Sherman's integrity was 
dreadful, but it is not one hundredth part as infamous 
as Sherman's proof against himself. It is a sad thing 
for his reputation that his memoirs should ever have seen 
the light. 

His confession that he made a false charge against 
Hampton, m order to injure his reputation — his admis- 
sion that he employed his time during the truce, which 
pledged him to preserve the status quoy in destroying 
the status quo by the reconstruction of vital railroads — 



THE CONVENTION AT DURHAM'S. 237 

his Statement that he induced Johnston to give up his 
arms, under a promise of protection, while his real in- 
tention was to prosecute him to the extent of the law — 
all will stand against Sherman's reputation as an honor- 
able man to the last syllable of recorded time. He has 
deliberately made his own record, and he is to be held 
responsible at the bar of history for it. 

I am not aware, nor have I ever heard, that Sherman 
anywhere, at any time, sought to redeem the pledge he 
made at Durham's station. Not so the great soldier, his 
superior. There was not a moment, from the surrender 
at Appomattox court-house until his death, that the heart 
of Grant was not full of generosity to his late foes. 

If Lincoln had lived, the people would have been 
saved great suffering; but Lincoln dead, Grant stood 
'4ike a stonewall" between the soldiers, who had his 
parole, and the blood-hounds baying on their track. 

There was a mature, deliberate, carefully concocted 
plan to indict, try, convict and punish Lee. 

The President of the United States instructed the 
Judge of the District Court for the Eastern District of 
Virginia to secure the indictment of President Davis and 
Gen. Lee for treason.* 

In May, 1866, accordingly, an indictment was found 
against the commander of the Army of Northern Vir- 
ginia, and a motion made for a bench warrant for his 
arrest. Lee inclosed a copy of the newspaper notice of 
these transactions to Grant, then the General in com- 
mand of the armies of the United States. 



*Chase's Decisions, p. i. 



•38 LIFE OF GeS^» 



SEPH E. JOHNSTON. 



Without a moment's hesitation or an instant's doubt, 
Grant addressed a letter to the President of the United 
States, insisting, in fiery terms, that it was a question of 
his honor ^ of his faith, that all proceedings against 
Lee should be promptly suppressed, and, upon some 
discussion raised, intimated that his resignation was the 
alternative to a refusal of his demand. So peremptory 
a demand admitted of no paltering, and the proceeding 
against Lee was suspended. 

Shortly afterward, another officer, included in the 
terms of the Durham convention, which Grant had 
signed, was arrested in Baltimore on an indictment for 
overt acts of treason committed at the battle of Gettysburg. 
Gen. Johnston, with the officer who had been arrested, 
waited on Grant at army headquarters at Washington, and 
claimed the protection of the parole. Grant at once 
wrote to the President of the United States, insisting, in ' 
the clearest and most emphatic terms, that all Confed- 
erate soldiers embraced in the terms of the convention, 
were entitled to be protected from molestation to person 
or property in any manner, and that the public faith of 
the United States was pledged to this course of action. * 

* See Appendix A. 



THE RECORD OF SHERMAN'S DRAGONNADE. 239 



CHAPTER XV, 

) OF Sherman's i 

THE introduction of the account of the barbarous 
proceedings during the campaign from Atlanta to 
Goldsboro is necessary, because to form a proper esti- 
mate of the character and career of Johnston, he must 
be seen by the light of contemporaneous sentiments and 
feelings, and of surrounding circumstances. His stature 
can best be measured by that of his comrades, or his 
adversaries. 

In the midst of the most cruel and barbarous war that 
has been waged in Christendom among Christians for 
three centuries, he never lost his poise. He was always 
the knightly soldier, the Christian warrior, and no man 
or woman or child ever lived who could say that John- 
ston cost them one tear. His soul was as clear, his hands as 
unstained as any knightly pilgrim of tradition, or of fable. 
Like Lee, he never for an instant yielded to the clamor 
of revenge, of hate, and of folly, that filled the air with 
demands for ** retaliation, no quarter, and the black flag." 
Like Davis, his soul abhorred all cowardly and cruel 
measures. When a distinct retaliation, for a distinct 
crime, could have the effect of preventing a repetition of 
it, or when a threat of retaliation was necessary to save 
the commissioned officers of the army or navy of the 
Confederacy from an ignominious death. Gen. Johnston 
approved of applying the remedy promptly and vigor- 



240 LIFE OP^«^8l|^ JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 



ously. But there is not an incident in his whole career 
as soldier for which his countrymen, Federal or Con- 
federate, need now to blush. 

Posterity is a relentless judge. History is an unerring 
arbiter, and the truth, the facts, have been recorded here, 
so that all the actors concerned in these events may have 
meted out to them the justice of the final judgment of 
men; with the other we dare not meddle. 

But it is right and expedient that men should be held 
responsible in this world for conduct, so that their 
example, and their fate may deter future generations 
from imitating them. 

It is believed that no American general, suppressing 
future resistance to Government by armed force, will 
ever instigate or countenance or permit such barbarities 
as were perpetrated during this dragonnade of these 
States. Washington did not do it in putting down the 
whiskey insurrection in Pennsylvania, nor did Lincoln 
in dispersing Shay's rebellion in Massachusetts. 

Says McMaster: **Lincoln's march from Boston to 
Springfield was conducted with the greatest regard for 
the feelings and property of the inhabitants."^ 

Washington's march, from Carlisle to Bedford, and 
thence to Parkinson's Ferry, was conducted with dis- 
cipline and humanity. Their troops were old soldiers 
of the Revolution, or soldiers' sons. They never dreamed 
of such a sentiment, that an invaded people should be 
left ** only eyes to weep." 

It is hoped that no future American soldier will feel, 
or utter such a one. 



* McMaster's "People of the United States," VoL I, p. 319. 




' 


,/ 




\ 


- 


^■'^*^ 


-« 


% 




t^^ 


-^i^ 


j^ii-t^ 


f^ 


0^ 


1 


^ 


'tm 


i^(^ 




^. 


^f 


1 


1 


^'4r 



AFTER THE SURRENDER. 24 1 



CHAPTER XVI. 

AFTER THE SURRENDER. 

FROM the conference at Durham, Gen. Johnston rode 
back to Greensboro, and proceeded to execute his 
agreement. Duplicate muster-rolls were prepared, 
signed by commanding officers, detailed by Gen. Sher- 
man for the purpose, and paroles were executed by each 
soldier — private and officer. 

A considerable amount of specie was on the train 
which brought President Davis to Greensboro, and was 
carried on south with him. The amoun^ was greatly 
exaggerated, and the ownership of it utterly misunder- 
stood. 

There was in the Coniederate treasury, belonging to 
the Confederate government, ;^327,02 2.90. 

The General Assembly of Virginia, in its session of 
January, 1865, had passed a law levying a tax in coin 
on the banks of the State, which was in substance a 
forced loan. 

This coin thus collected was lodged in some Rich- 
mond banks as a special deposit by the commonwealth 
of Virginia. It amounted to ;^230,ooo. 

On Sunday, April 2, when Richmond was being 
evacuated, Governor Letcher sent an officer down, and 
withdrew this special deposit of the State, and sent it off 
Vvrith the cash of the Confederacy. 

Some bank officers, from whom the coin had 'originally 



242 LIFE OF GE^>JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

been taken by the State, went with it, somewhat on the 
idea of flotsam, where in a shipwreck, every one is en- 
titled to all he saves. 

This ;^230,ooo was captured at Washington, Georgia, 
and was covered into the treasury of the United States, 
where it now is. Of the Confederate coin, ;^39,ooo was 
left with Gen. Johnston, at Greensboro, as his military 
chest, and was divided by him to his troops, each re- 
ceiving ^1.15, without regard to rank — the only pay 
most of them had received for a year. The rest was 
paid out to troops at Washington, Georgia, by order of 
Mr. Davis, and Gen. Breckenridge, Secretary of War; 
by M. H. Clark, Esq., acting Treasurer of the Confed- 
erate States.* 

Gen. Johnston, therefore, was in error when 
he stated, long afterward, that President Davis had a 
large amount, or any amount, of Confederate gold with 
him — ^just as Stanton was mistaken when he believed 
that his General, second in rank in his army, was 
capable of being bribed, and had in fact been bribed, 
by Mr. Davis, to let him escape. 

If anything is certain in this world it is that Davis's 
soul was too great, and his nature too lofty to be capable 
of such an idea. He would have died in his tracks 
before he would have offered a bribe to his enemy to 
induce him betray his duty. 

This may be a strained sense of chivalry, but Presi- 
dent Davis possessed it, held to it, lived on, and died 
by it. 

* Memoirs of Davis, Vol. II, p. 868, 



AFTER THE SURRENDER. 243 

No power could make him condone, ignore, or do a 
foul thing. 

The crudest oiow that ever was struck at him, was 
the dastardly charge of Andrew Johnson and Stanton, 
of complicity with the assassination of Lincoln. As he 
said with keen bitterness: ** There is one man in the 
United States who knows the falsity of that charge 
absolutely, and that is the man who made it, for he 
knows that I greatly prefer Lincoln for President 
to him.^^ 



244 LIFE OF GEN'. TOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

CHAPTER XVII. 

THE YEARS OF RE-CONSTRUCTION. 

AFTER Johnston had discharged his duty to his 
soldiers, by securing to each one the written 
promise of Gen. Sherman for protection, he started 
them homeward under the command of their own 
Division and Brigade Generals. 

Sherman was moving North for his grand review 
at Washington, having left Schofield with his corps to 
command the Department of North Carolina. 

Schofield set the sxample, and every man under him 
behaved with the most chivalric courtesy to the heart- 
broken people they had conquered. He supplied 
rations and transportation for the march of the paroled 
Confederates returning home. Where railroads were in 
operation, Federal Quartermasters gave them orders to 
be carried over the railroads to their homes on the 
nearest point by rail to them. 

Thus Texans, Arkansians, and Missourians were sent 
thousands of miles at the expense of the Federal Gov- 
ernment, and it may be recorded that during the whole 
year 1865, from the ist of May, when the paroles were 
signed, peace and order, good-will and kind offices, 
reigned in all the conquered States. As long as the 
soldiers controlled things, everything went on well. It 
was only when the politicians began to divide the 
plunder of the conquest, and allot the prize money, 
that the ^^uffering was ten-fold aggravated. 



THE YEARS OF RE-CONSTRUCTION. 245 

The surrender at Durham's had left Gen. Johnston 
without one cent in the world. The scant savings of a 
life in the old army had been left in the North and were 
all gone. Mrs. Johnston had a small property from her 
father's estate,' which was in the hands of her family, in 
Ciilifornia, or in Maryland, and that alone was saved 
from the wreck. Gen. Johnston made a point, all his 
life, to preserve his wife's property, for her alone — under 
her entire control, free from any interference by him at 
all. All he had to do with it was to see that it was safe. 

The Southern people had nothing to offer him but 
their love. They gave that unstinted. He was made 
president of a railroad in Arkansas. But that did not 
materalize; and he was chosen as president of the 
National Express Company, an enterprise organized 
under the laws of Virginia, to engage in the business of 
quick transportation of parcels. This was unsatisfactory, 
and, in a short time, he gave that up and became the 
agent of the London, Liverpool & Globe Insurance Co., 
and the New York Life Insurance Co., for the Gulf 
States, with headquarters at Savannah. He made his 
residence there, and pushed the business in which he 
was engaged with great energy and intelligence. His 
reputation aided in making the enterprise a success, and 
he lived for several years in that city which was devoted 
to him and his wife. 

But Mrs. Johnston's health, which had been failing 
tor years, m.ade a more northern climate necessary, and 
besides, he v/^nted to get back to his Mother Virginia, 
and, in 18^6, he removed to Richmond, 



7.46 LIFE OF GE^. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

Virginia was just then recovering from the throes of 
the struggle for the possession of. her government, and 
the preservation of her civilization. 

The Richmond District had been represented 
satisfactorily in Congress for several terms by Gilbert C. 
Walker, a Northern man, who had been elected by the 
white people of Virginia their first governor under the 
re-constructed government. 

After governor Walker's term expired, he was 
rewarded for the admirable manner in which he had 
performed his executive duties by being chosen to 
represent the MetroDolitan District of Virginia in 
Congress. 

In 1877, there were several aspirants for his place, 
but the old soldiers concluded that they had the right to 
represent that district, and that Gen. Johnston was the 
proper man to represent them. 

Col. Archer Anderson, his former chief-of-staff, was 
selected to sound the General as to whether such a can- 
didacy would be agreeable to him. The movement 
was without his knowledge, and was absolutely volun- 
tary, and in no way, direct or indirect, had he any- 
thing to do with it. Col. Anderson reported as his 
opinion that the General would be much gratified at 
such a proof of the love and respect of Virginians, as 
a tender of the nomination would be. 

The next step was to get the ambitious aspirants out 
of the way, so as to prevent all competition, and a card 
was drawn up requesting General Johnston to allow his 
name to be used as the Democratic candidate for 



THE YEARS OF RE-CONSTRUCTION. 247 

Congress from the Fourth Virginia District. This card 
was presented to the aspirants first, for approval and 
signature. They had not the slightest idea that the 
General would accept the position, and they hastened to 
sign, eager to have the benefit with Johnston's friends of 
a cordial and prompt support of him. 

To their disgust, he promptly accepted, and was put 
in the canvass as the Democratic nominee. 

But probably no man in America was more utterly 
unfitted to be a candidate for popular favor, at an 
election by universal suffrage, than *^01d Joe," as he 
was affectionately known. 

By nature a reserved man, except to the few whom 
he loved, fifty years of life as a soldier in command, had 
utterly unfitted him for the flexibilities of a canvass 
among the people. 

He had definite and precise laeas on the theory of 
government and the history and construction of the 
Constitution of the United States. Few politicians were 
as well or as accurately informed as he, or had thought 
out as thoroughly the answers to the social and political 
problems then confronting, or about to confront, the 
people of Virginia. 

He had ample capacity to explain his views to a 
small audience, but the bustle and noise and puerility of 
the hustings disgusted him. He tried to accommodate 
himself to them, but gave it up. 

Major Robert Stiles and Captain Louis F. Bossieux, 
of Richmond, were placed in charge of the canvass, 
and never had candidate two more intelligent, zealous, 
* energetic, never-tiring friends, that they were. 



248 LIFE OF GlUfc. 



JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 



The influenza of Greenbackism had attacked the 
district, and the opposing candidate was traversing the 
counties, advocating a "shower of greenbacks," which 
ought to be secured to the farmers and laboring people. 

And the people from the very battle-field where 
Johnston shed his blood in their defence in May, 1862, 
were preparing to vote against him for Congress, the 
hope of cheap money being stronger than the memory 
of dear blood. 

A friend of Gen. Johnston's was telegrapned to the 
White Sulphur to come back at once, and he 
returned on the next train. 

At the committee rooms ne was informed that 
Johnston would be beaten unless they could raise some 
money, and that their resources were exhausted. 

They had expended about a thousand dollars in the 
canvass, and they believed success reasonably sure, if 
they could raise another thousand. Gen. Johnston 
knew absolutely nothing about the financial part of the 
canvass; had paid, probably, the rent of the committee 
room and the pay of a clerk, but beyond that he had no 
idea that money was necessary, and they were afraid to 
broach the subject, for fear lest he would throw up the 
candidacy, on the idea that if a seat in Congress was to 
be paid for, he would not have it. The matter was put 
in the hands of a friend, who wrote to another friend of 
Gen. Johnston, in Maryland, explaining the situation 
and asking for help. In a couple of days came the 
answer, that nothing could be expected in that quarter. 
Thereupon, the gentleman called on Mrs. Tohnston. and 



THE YEARS OF RE-CONSTRUCTION. 249 

sent her word by the servant, that there ^'was an old 
soldier down thar' who hadn't had nothing to eat fur 
three days. Could she give him a squar' meal's vittles?" 
Mrs. Johnston, recognizing the message and the voice, 
came down at once, and, in a short time, dinner was 
announced. 

The General was off on his canvass, and Mrs. John- 
ston at once began to upbraid her friend, who she had 
known, all through the war and since, as one of her 
husband's dearest friends, with the undignified position 
he had put *' Johnston," as she called him, in. 

*^It's all your fault," she cried, with bright vivacity — 
she was one of the most charming of women — **It's all 
your fault. You got him into this thing, and it's shame- 
ful, a man of his age and reputation, going round to 
your cross roads, like a common member of Congress. 
I do hope he'll be beat. That'll serve you all right." 

** Well, Mrs. Johnston," said her visitor, ** you will 
certainly be gratified, for the General is beat now! " 

^* What's that you say?" said she, **if he's beat it will 
be simply disgraceful, and shameful! It will kill him. 
He shan't be beat; you must not allow it. I will not 
permit it!" 

*'Well," said the other, *«he certainly will be beat, 
unless we can raise a thousand dollars, and everybody 
is afraid to mention it to the old General ; and, as you 
are the only person we know who ain't afraid of him, 
I've come to explain the situation to you! " 

*'Oh, that's it, is it? " said she, "I'll see you get the 
money -in the morning." 



250 LIFE OF gS^II^OSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

Bright and early next morning, she drove down in her 
carriage to the committee room, called Styles out, and 
gave him two ;^i,ooo railroad bonds, worth ;^8oo each, 
and told him to call on her for whatever was necessary. 

Her example so inspired the General's friends that 
they raised the necessary funds, and triumphantly 
elected him; and, after the election. Major Styles 
returned Mrs. Johnston's bonds to her, and it is not 
believed that the General ever knew of the incident at 
all. 

In Congress he was placed on the Military Committee, 
and there his word was law, on all questions relating to 
the equipment of, and expenditure for, the army. 

At the expiration of his term he was not a candidate 
for re-election, for he would have encountered opposition 
for the nomination, and his friends did not think it just, 
to him, that he should be required to enter into a struggle 
for that which, it ought to have been, the highest honor 
the people of his district could confer on themselves. 

He had a house in Washington, though he maintained 
his residence in Richmond, and he died a registered 
voter in the district he had defended in war and honored 
in peace. 

He was appomted, by President Cleveland, one of the 
Commissioners of Railroads of the United States, the 
duties of which place he performed with the energy, 
zeal and intelligence always exercised by him in the 
execution of duty. 



T 



DAVIS AND JOHNSTON. 25I 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

DAVIS AND JOHNSTON. 

HE two men in the Confederacy, whose perfect 
accord and implicit confidence in each other were 
most necessary to the success of the new government, 
were the two men who, from the first, were perfectly 
and entirely estranged and separated. 

This was a misfortune to their country, and to their 
own reputations, the consequences of which were far 
reaching and disastrous. 

They were remarkably alike in mind and in character, 
in temperament and in sentiment. Each was the son 
of a Revolutionary soldier; each had imbibed, at his 
mother's knee, and from his father's daily life, traditions 
of patriotic self-sacrifice, and fearless devotion to duty. 
Each had the highest ideal of liberty, and of country. 
Each the most sentimental and tender devotion to family 
and to friends. Each was a consistent Christian, be- 
lieving absolutely and implicitly in the goodness of God, 
and in his superintending love for all his children. Each 
loved his family, and his friends, with an intensity that 
brooked no doubt and tolerated not criticism. 

President Davis had been educated as a soldier. He 
had had a long experience on the frontier; that training 
school for fortitude, endurance, courage and fidelity. 

After leaving the army his mind had been matured 
by long and patient study of political problems and 



252 LIFE OF GEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

military history, improved by daily discussion with his 
companion, his elder brother, one of the ablest men of 
his day, as he was one of the best-informed. After an 
experience in political discussion as Member of Congress, 
he had given up his seat to take command of the First 
Mississippi Regiment, a body of volunteers of the young 
gentlemen of his State. 

With it he performed such distinguished service as 
fell to the good fortune of no other Colonel during the 
Mexican War, and he came back thoroughly impressed 
with the capacity of the American volunteer to make 
the best soldier. 

Afterwards, his service as Secretary of War, and 
chairman of the Military Committee of the Senate, had 
given him large experience in the administration of the 
army, and a wide view of the strategy of a war in 
America. 

He became Secretary of War in March, 1853, con- 
tinued in charge of that Department until 1857, then 
returned to the Senate, where he was Chairman of the 
Committee on Military Affairs, until he resigned his 
place, in 1861, to take command of the Army of Mis- 
sissippi. During that ten years his mind had been 
turning over the contingency of a war between the 
States. 

He certainly deprecated a separation, and only 
acquiesced in it, as a choice of evils. But he was 
convinced always, that a great war would be the conse- 
quence of the action of the Southern States. 

When, therefore, the contingency actually happened. 



DAVIS AND JOHNSTON. 253 

Mr. Davis, a soldier by training, by taste, and by tern-, 
perament, was thoroughly prepared, by long study and 
investigation, for the proper steps to be taken. In his 
own mind he had matured the policy of a war of 
defence, and the strategy by which it was to be con- 
ducted to a successful issue. 

He considered himself more competent for military 
command than for civil administration, and his election 
as President of the Confederate States was d. disap- 
pointment to him. He hoped, and preferred, to have 
been made Commander-in-chief of the army in the 
field. He was thoroughly imbued with the traditions 
and feelings of the old army, which he believed were 
based on the soundest reason. 

A fundamental principle in military organization is 
that staff officers cannot command troops, unless specially 
assigned to that duty. And m addition to that the 
Quartermaster-General of the Army of the United 
States was prohibited by law from commanding troops."^ 
. Gen. Johnston, with the same preliminary education 
and training as President Davis, had been serving for 
thirty years in the regular service of a regular army. 
That service had been in every field, and his experi- 
ence was wide and great, but it was the experience of a 
soldier. Now no man with a special training, and 
extended service, in one line of conduct, can regard 
another who has only occasionally and temporarily 
devoted himself to similar pursuits, as equal in equip- 
ment to himself. Every regular looks at least with 

♦Memoirs of Jefferson Davis, Vol. II, p. 150. 



254 LIFE OF GEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

amusement on the amateur, whether it be in theatricals 
or on a military parade. • 

When, therefore. President Davis first met Gen. 
Johnston in discussion about the conduct of the war at 
Montgomery, Alabama, early in 1861, Johnston, I doubt 
not, received his mature suggestion without cordiality, 
and heard his opinion as to the strategy of the war 
with expressed dissent. 

Mr. Davis had been studying the problem for years. 
He was a widely-read, vigorous thinker, and he was, as 
a matter of fact, quite as well equipped on matters of the 
theory of the war as any man living. But right here he 
and Johnston collided. Johnston disagreed with him 
absolutely and without qualification. Mr. Davis knew, 
for he had read history, that a slave population was 
utterly unreliable in war. He believed, as turned out 
the fact, that the Southern slaves would be obedient, 
faithful, and tractable; but he also knew that the supe- 
rior force of the Master once removed from them, they 
would become worthless as a producing machme. The 
experience of the War of the Revolution proved this, as 
shown in Johnson's Life of Greene ; and Mr. Davis was 
convinced that the protection of Southern territory from 
contact with the enemy was the only way to preserve 
social institutions, as well as the industrial organization 
of the South. 

His large mind had matured the plan 01 defence, and 
had worked out many details for the Drotection of the 
Southern territory. 

He oroposed to hold the seaboard with garrisons 



DAVIS AND JOHNSTON. 255 

at its ports, and to protect a line from the Chesapeake 
along the Potomac, through the mountains of Western 
Virginia, and make the Ohio and the Missouri the fron- 
tiers, to be covered by armies placed within supporting 
distance. 

Johnston repudiated the whole plan. He pointed out 
that by trying to protect a frontier three thousand miles 
long, your adversary was permitted to select the point 
for attack, to concentrate on it, and to break it when he 
pleased. 

The proper policy, he said, was to have no fortified 
positions and no lines of defence— to concentrate armies 
at points best adapted for subsistence, and prompt com- 
munication, and when the enemy advanced into your 
country, having the interior lines, to concentrate on him 
an overwhelming force, and crush him. Then, said he, 
you will recover all you have lost. ''But," rephed the 
President, ''wherever a Federal army marches through 
the South, it will leave destruction and disorganization 
in its wake. You may drive it back, but you cannot 
restore the destruction it has caused— not the destruction 
of property, but the destruction of social order. The 
mgroes, who do not go off, will remain utterly useless." 
This discussion, between the statesman and the sol- 
dier, could have no end, because there was no maxim 
common to both, no axiom on which they agreed. And 
the difference was ineradicable. 

When, therefore. President Davis came to arrange 
the rank of the superior officers, provided for the act of 
the Confederate Congress, he was unwilling to put in 



256 LIFE OF 5l?lfc^^JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

command of the Confederate army a man who enter- 
tained such radically divergent views from his own. 
Ignoring Johnston^s staff and rank as Brigadier Quarter- 
master-General, in the army of the United States, he 
construed the statutory promise of the Confederate Con- 
gress to mean, that officers joining their army from that 
of the United States, should retain their relative positions 
and should be commissioned with the relative rank in 
the line of tJic ai^my from which they came, ignoring the 
fact that staff rank was rank, as much as line rank. 

And the Act of Congress did not say, ^'relative line 
rank," it said relative rank — nothing more, nothing less. 

And Johnston had the right to complain, and he did 
complain, and to feel as he did feel, that lie, the rank- 
ing officer in the United States Army., who had cast his 
fortunes in the Confederacy, should have been made 
fourth in rank instead of first in rank. 

Mr. Davis says: **General Johnston does not re- 
member that he did not leave the Army of the United 
States to enter the Arm}^ of the Confederate States, 
but to enter the army of Virginia, and that Lee ranked 

him in that Army."" 
■4. _ 

That is surely no reason that a soldier should first 

have offered his sword to his native State, who was 

standing by herself, before she entered the Confederacy. 

It can be no disqualification in a movement organized on 

the principle of the sovereignty of States, and that the 

Federal Government was the creature of the States, and 

that its army was subordinate to, and subject to the 

armies of the States. 



♦Memoirs of Jefferson Davis, Vol. II, p. 150. 



DAVIS AND JOHNSTON. 257 

President Davis entered first the military service of 
Mississippi, and no one ever thought that such action, 
in any way^ operated as disqualification of him in 
patriotism, or in wisdom. This arrangement of rank 
Gen. Johnston felt as keenly as a blow, and resented it 
as such. If staff rank was ignored, Col. Cooper, 
Adjutant-General of the United States Army, had no 
other rank than staff rank, and yet he was made the 
ranking General. This difference of opinion, and this 
affront, was the source and cause of all future trouble.^ 
Johnston urged the concentration of troops with Bragg 
in Tennessee in 1863, and that he attack Grant in 
detail in Northern Mississippi. He remonstrated 
against Bragg's raid into Kentucky. He insisted that 
Holmes be ordered to report to him from Arkansas ; and 
his remonstrance and applications were neither dignified 
nor subordinate in tone or style. As was natural, they 
were ignored or directly refused. 

Thus things went on from bad to worse, until the 
Dalton-Atlanta campaign, when President Davis insisted 
that Gen. Johnston should report to him his plan of 
campaign and inform him categorically, if he intended 
to fight at all, and if so, when and where. This inter- 
meddling with his prerogative, as Johnston considered it, 
was resented by him, and the consequence was his 
removal. Hood's fiasco in Tennessee, the direct conse- 
quence of President Davis's strategy, and Sherman's 
maraud through three States, and the speedy fall of the 
Confederacy. 

Jefferson Davis, as time goes on, ana the dust and 



258 LIFE OF GEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

smoke of contemporary conflict clears off, will be 
esteemed one of the great men of history. His per- 
sonal characteristics were not those generally possessed 
by the successful men of affairs. They, as Mr. Seward 
once ingenuously said, in private conversation with Mr. 
and Mrs. Davis, when he was Secretary of War in 
Pierce's cabinet, consider success the first duty. "* When 
truth will serve that, then they use truth; if not, then 
they use something else and reserve truth for another 
occasion. The fiber of Mr. Davis' mind was such that 
he could not understand such an intellectual proposition. 
His brain worked like a perfect mechanism — -given cer- 
tain premises — certain results must follow. He couldn't 
think superficially or falsely, nor could he sympathize 
with wrong or injustice. His heart was as large and as 
true as his brain. No man ever loved his wife, his 
children, his friends, his country, with a more intense 
affection and perfect devotion. Not a friend of his early 
youth, not one of his young manhood on the frontier, 
that he did not retain in his inmost heart. 

After the war an old soldier of his cavalry command, 
in the Black Hawk War, wrote him from Texas, recall- 
ing the noble and generous care of Lieutenant Davis for 
a soldier in the ranks who was ill unto death, and whose 
life was saved by the firmness, and thoughtfulness, and 
kindheartedness, of his commanding officer, the ex-Pres- 
ident. His intellect was as vigorous and as broad as 
his heart was great. His bearing was graceful, alert 
and dignified, and his voice the most silvery, as well as 
far-reaching, that ever has been heard in modern times. 



DAVIS AND JOHNSTON. 259 

No one who saw it will ever forget the scene at the 
great memorial meeting of the Survivors of the Army of 
Northern Virginia, held at Richmond, on November 3, 
1870, when President Davis was brought forward to 
preside. Few had seen him since his incarceration at 
Fortress Monroe, when he had been made the vicarious 
sacrifice for the sins of the Southern people. 

Before him were the heroes of a hundred battles — men 
who had faced death and plucked victory from the very 
front of danger a thousand times, speechless in emotion 
at the sight of their chieftain, whom they loved for the 
sufTerincrs he had undero^one for their sakes. As Davis 
came forward on that platform, such a tense cry of 
human passion, and sympathy, and grief, and love, went 
up as w^as never heard in this world. He stood for a 
minute, his figure straightening and quivering with feel- 
ing, and began in a low voice, of such exquisitely silver 
tones that it thrilled the utmost vergreof theo-reat audience, 
**soldiers and sailors of the Confederacy, countrymen 
and friends." 

Assembled on this sad occasion, with hearts oppressed 
with the grief that follows the loss of him who was our 
leader, on many a bloody battlefield, there is a melan- 
choly pleasure in the spectacle which is presented. 
Hitherto men have been honored when successful; but 
here is the case of one who, amidst disaster, went down 
to his grave, and those who were his companions in 
misfortune, have assembled to honor his memory. It is 
as much an honor to you who give, as to him who re- 
ceives, for, above the vulgar test, you show 3^ourselves 



26o T.IFE OF GE^. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

competent to judge between him who enjoys and him 
who deserves success. 

Robert E. Lee was my associate and friend in the 
military academ}^, and we were friends until the hour 
of his death."' "•^" ^' ^ Here he sleeps now in the land he 
loved so well, and that land is not Virginia only, for 
they do injustice to Lee who believe he fought only for 
Virorinia. 

o 

He was ready to go anywhere, on any service, for the 
good of his country, and his Jieart was as broad as the 
fifteen States stmggling for the principle that our fore- 
fathers fought for in the Revolutio7i of 1776. 

He sleeps with the thousands who fought under the 
same flag, and happiest they who first offered up 
their lives; he sleeps in the soil to him and to them 
most dear. That flag w^s furled when there was none 
to hear it; around it we are assembled, a remnant of 
the living, to do honor to his memory, and there is an 
army of skeleton sentinels to keep watch above his 
grave. This good citizen, this gallant soldier, this 
great general, this true patriot, had yet a higher praise 
than this — he was a true Christian. The Christianity 
which ennobled his life gives us the consolatory belief 
that he is happy beyond the grave." 

As the voice of the orator rose and fell like the vibra- 
tions of a bell, of perfect modulation, it sounded like a 
dirge for the glorious dead and an invocation to the 
faithful living. 

Such an orator, on such an occasion, with such an 
audience, has never before been seen by men, and 



DAVIS AND JOHNSTON. 261 

President Davis's words go sounding down the years, 
wath the ring of prophecy and the power of doom. 
Ten generations from now they will be quoted to show 
what manner of man Davis was, with whom he lived, 
and whom he led. 

The soul of honor, the mirror of chivalry, the 
embodiment of generous friendship; patriot, sage, sol- 
dier, lover, father, he will furnish the model to future 
American citizens, of noble conduct, and high aspira- 
tions, of fortitude and courage, which will form char- 
acter, as long as justice is cherished, and right believed 
to be desirable, wherever liberty is maintained, or 
sought for, and heroic endeavor is imitated. 

Gen. Johnston was as intense a man as President 
Davis. 

His letter, quoted in the first chapter of this memoir, 
his fiery remonstrance at the indignity put upon him 
in the matter of rank, gives the keynote of his life, 
and the clue to his feelings. He was the son of a 
Revolutionary soldier, who had fought for Virginia. 
He had been reared among the very men who fought at 
King's Mountain, and there was not an incident of 
the Southern struggle for independence that was not 
burnt into his boyish heart, by recital around the fire- 
side. He knew how the Tories wore green pine twigs 
in their hats, and how the Whigs wore a tuft of white 
cotton or cotton cloth. 

The sword with which Ensign Peter Johnston cleared 
the way at Wright's Bluff had been delivered to his 
hand. It should be devoted to the defence of his 



262 LIFE OF Ge!II|^ 



JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 



Mother Virginia. Johnston was intensely clannish. 
The ties of blood bound him tight. Kinship created 
solemn obligations. He was the Virginian of the Vir- 
ginians. And, while he loved Lee, with a faithful and 
loyal friendship, he always felt hurt that Virginia should 
have apotheosized him, and given Johnston a sec- 
ondary place in her heart. 

This was one of the grievances he felt against Mr. 
Davis. He had separated him from Virginia, and sent 
him away from his blood and kin. Johnston had a 
heart as tender as a child. He loved children. He 
loved young people. He loved those who loved him. 

In October, 1861, on the line at Mumson's and Mason's 
Hill, below Fairfax court-house, one day he found the 
Lieutenant-Colonel of the First Maryland regiment 
riding along the picket line with his little son, a lad of 
five and a half years, on his pony by his side, and 
highly diverted with the singing of an occasional bullet 
which would fly from the opposite picket. For thirty 
years Gen. Johnston remembered that incident, and. 
would refer to it with glee, and the very summer before 
his death found much pleasure in the six-year-old son 
of his young cavalryman of Mumson's Hill. His heart 
yearned for affection. The devotion between his wife 
and himself was an idyl. 

She was the grand-daughter of Capt. Allan McLane, 
of Delaware, who, with his troop of dragoons, patrolled 
and picketed the roads around Valley Forge, in the 
winter of 1777, side by side with Harry Lee, of Virginia. 
Her father, Louis McLane, had filled and ornamented 



DAVIS AND JOHNSTON. 263 

the highest civil stations in the government, except the 
very highest. Twice minister to England, Secretary of 
the Treasury, and of State, of the United States, Repre- 
sentative and Senator in Congress, his daughter had 
graced the most elegant society in America and in Eng- 
land. She was witty, graceful, charming, fascinating, 
and, without being a raving beauty, was altogether one 
of the most delightful women of her day. Her husband 
thought ' her the loveliest, most agreeable person that 
ever lived, and she worshiped him as her knight and 
hero. 

To the day of her death, their devotion to each other 
knew no change, nor experienced any moderation. 

He buried her where he could be secure of a place by 
her side, and prepared his own resting place there, at 
the same time he arranged hers. Mrs. Johnston's bad- 
inage about ''Johnston," as she generally spoke of him, 
and sometimes *'Joe," was delightful. Warm hearted, 
impulsive, generous, of course she took up his quarrels 
in the army, and sometimes high discord reigned in the 
higher circles. The General had a great respect for 
her intellect, and for her character, as well as the warmest 
admiration for her person, and altogether, when he was 
eighty years old, he furnished the model for a courtly 
and ardent lover. 

His mind was as well cultivated and tramed as that 
of any soldier who ever lived, and as well stored with 
the history of men, of nations, and of wars. It was re- 
markably vigorous and penetrating, and he could put 
the most complex proposition, whether of affairs or of 



264 LIFE OF GEN^JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

ideas, in such a lucid order, and clear arrangement, as to 
render it caoable of being easily grasped by an ordinary 
intellect. 

He was master of a peculiarly strong, terse, Saxon 
English. When he was at Centreville, in the winter 
of 1862, the style of the address and of the orders 
about re-enlistment was so very forcible that many had 
the notion that they came from the pen of Beverly 
Johnston, Esq., the General's elder brother, wlio was 
his guest at headquarters a part of the time. 

Beverly Johnston was a lawyer, and a scholar of 
English literature, of rare accomplishments and acquire- 
ments, but it is certain that the papers in question were 
written by the General himself. ^ When he took com- 
mand at Harper's Ferry in May, 1861, he was just a 
little over fifty-four years of age, with dark hair, and 
not a strand of gray in it; with gray eyes, a clean, 
clear complexion, short side-whiskers, and a close cut 
moustache; about five feet eight inches high, and 
weighing probably one hundred and thirty-five pounds. 
His form was perfect — a mixture of strength, activity, 
grace, dignity and force, altogether unusual. If Gen. 
Johnston had entered an assemblage in London, Paris, 
Berlin, or any other European capital, of the elite of 
that society, he would have at once attracted attention 
from his mien and bearing. 

^ Lee was reposeful and dignified; Davis was grace- 
ful and dignified; Johnston was forceful and dignified. 

As full of repose as Lee, as full of grace as Davis, 
with it all he produced the impression of vigor, of 



DAVIS AND JOHNSTON. 265 

force, of weight. He was a large man, and in regard- 
ing him one lost all power of comparison and con- 
ception of stature. The man was a master; a noble 
character, a great will, a large nature, was before the 
observer, and he was unable to compare him with 
others. "* 

I called with him on Grant in Washington in March, 
1866, at army headquarters, to claim the protection of 
the parole under the Durham Convention. Gen. Grant, 
without a moment's hesitation wrote the proper letter to 
the President, and as Johnston rose to leave. Grant 
rose, too, and said: '^General, permit me to present 
my staff to you," and, touching a bell, the orderly 
ushered in a procession of general officers, who, hearing 
that Johnston was in the building, had collected in the 
ante-room to pay their respects to him. Gen. Grant 
stood on Gen. Johnston's right hand, and as each gentle- 
man came up, presented him to Johnston. 

The scene was a curious and interesting one, but the 
most impressive part to the Confederate was the manner 
in which Johnston bore himself — the dignity, the grace, 
the grave friendliness, with which he received this superb 
overture of respect. He seemed to tower above the crowd, 
although he was hardly of the average height, and I 
believe every man present that day left deeply impressed 
that he had met a very great man. 

Johnston never doubted that the Confederacy ought 
to have succeeded, that the men and resources were 
ample. The interior lines for concentration and supply, 
in his opinion largely, if not quite, equalized the prepon- 



266 LIFE OF GE^ JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

derance of force on the Federal side. He said that 
there were three distinct periods when the Confederacy 
could and ought to have succeeded. The first was when 
he had drawn McClellan from deep-water to the Chicka- 
hominy, in the spring of 1862. 

Then he said the garrisons of Wilmington, Charleston, 
Savannah and Mobile, with Jackson's Army of the 
Valley, ought to have been concentrated at Richmond, 
and McClellan's army would have been destroyed and 
peace conquered. 

The next opportunity was when Grant was in 
Northern Mississippi in 1863, with his army scattered 
along the railroad from Cairo to Corinth. 

Johnston again urged that Bragg's Army of Tennessee 
should be reinforced with the garrisons from the ports, and 
he should then destroy Grant in detail. This was not 
done. 

The third lost opportunity was when Grant crossed 
the Mississippi, at Bruinsburgh, in May, 1863, and 
Johnston was ordered to command the Department of 
the Mississippi. He then insisted that Holmes' 55,000, 
whom he had at Little Rock, should be consolidated 
with him, and he thus be enabled to capture Grant's army. 
This also was refused. Johnston remained of the opinion 
that either of these three movements were sound on mil- 
itary principles, and would have proved successful. In 
the light of subsequent events, it seems as if he was 
right. "^ 

^ Time will enlarge Jonnston's reputation. If there is 
such a thing as ill-fortune, he had more than his share 



DAVIS AND JOHNSTON. 267 

of it. He never had the chance that Lee had. If he 
had not been wounded at Seven Pines, a great victory 
would have crowned his arms with substantial results. 
If he had not been betrayed at Jackson, he would have 
joined with Pemberton and have captured Grant's army. 
If he had not been removed at Atlanta, he would almost 
certainly have defeated Sherman, and then would have 
ensued another Moscow retreat. But it is bootless to 
conjecture contingencies that never occurred. Johnston's 
campaigns will be judged by the canons of military 
criticism, and the highest authorities to-day of the mili- 
tary art consider them models for study and imitation. 
His movement from Yorktown to the Chickahominy, be- 
yond doubt, was masterly. He fixed himself close to 
his own base, and made his enemy leave his behind, and 
expose it to destruction, as was subsequently done by 
Stuart in June. But Johnston's reputation will rest on 
the Dalton- Atlanta campaign. That retreat has no par- 
allel in military history. Fighting and falling back, 
falling back and fighting, Johnston inflicted on his 
enemy a loss equal to his e7itire force; he himself losing 
not one-fifth as many as his adversary — and so skilfully 
was this done that when the time came to strike the final 
blow, at Atlanta, his people were on the qui vive for it. 
Johnston knew what his adversary was going to do and 
when he was going to do it. He knew that Thomas ' 
was going to cross Peach Tree Creek, three miles or 
more apart from the other corps, and he had made his 
dispositions to strike him, while extended in crossing the 
ford. But the order relieving him took all the spirit out 



268 LIFE OF GEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

of the men, and while they were led as gallantly and 
handled as promptly as men could be put into a fight, 
by Hood, they had lost that clan^ that morale^ which is 
so large a part of the soldiers' force in battle, and they 
failed. 

These were the misfortunes of a great heart. They 
will be repaired to him by posterity, for in the grand 
cortege of great generals, furnished by both sides in the 
war between the States, Johnston will be in the first rank 
among the very first. 

^ His faults were all human faults. He was quick- 
tempered and imperious. But he was great-hearted, 
chivalric, generous, loving, tender, and as true a man as 
ever carried cross, or drew sword." In subsequent chap- 
ters will be found the loving tributes of Major-General 
Dabney H. Maury, of Col. Archer Anderson, and of 
Major Robert Stiles. 

After the death of Mrs. Johnston, which occurred in 
1888, he lived at his house on Vermont avenue, Wash- 
ington, with his friends around him, but he always 
remained a citizen of Virginia, and died a registered 
voter of the City of Richmond. 

He always went home and voted. The McLanes, 
his wife's brothers, and nieces, and nephews, were as ten 
derly devoted and attentive to him as love can be. 
With him he had Joseph Wheeler, his chief-of-cavalry 
in Georgia, the chevalier sans pcur et sans reproche^ a 
greater terror to Sherman's bummers than the Black 
Douglas ever was to Saxon invader. Wade Hampton, 
cavalier of cavaliers, who brought "the gentlemen of 



DAVIS AND JOHNSTON. 269 

the legion" to back Bee's faltering lines at First 
Manassas, and who rode with him to the conference at 
Bennett's house with Sherman — the first a representa- 
tive from Alabama, the latter a Senator from South 
Carolina, Major-General Dabney H. Maur}- , who held 
Mobile against Farragut until there was nothing left to 
hold, Major-General Cadmus Wilcox, trusty and true 
as his own blade — these knights sat at the Round Table, 
giving the love of their hearts to as manly a Virginian, 
as true a gentleman, as gallant a soldier, and as able a 
general as America has ever reared. 

This large heart, this great intellect, this broad patri- 
otism, this devoted lover, leaves a figure misty and 
rather obscure and ill-defined. But as time goes on it 
will become more sharply and clearly defined, and be 
more and more recognized as one of the greatest men 
of a great epoch, and as an ideal for conduct and 
character in generations long hereafter to be born. 



270 LIFE OF GLlfi^JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

CHAPTER XIX. 

HIS LAST SICKNESS, DEATH AND FUNERAL.* 

r^EN. JOS. E. JOHNSTON died at 11 o'clock Satur- 
day night at his residence on Connecticut Avenue, 
Washington City. The General had been suffering for 
three weeks with an affection of the heart, aggravated 
by a cold he caught soon after General Sherman's 
funeral in New York. The immediate cause of his 
death was heart failure, due more particularly to extreme 
old age. His physician had been trying to keep his 
strength up for some days, but his advanced age had 
given little hope for his recovery from the beginning of 
his illness. The General did not seem to suffer in the 
least, and was conscious to the last. At his bedside 
was ex-Governor McLane, of Maryland, the General's 
brother-in-law, and the nurse. At times for about two 
years General Johnston had shown unmistakable signs 
of general breaking down. His mind often became 
bewildered, so that he couldn't tell where he was or how 
he came there. Some days after the Sherman funeral, 
the General one night got up out of his bed while in a 
state of profuse perspiration, which greatly aggravated 
the slight cold with which he was then suffering. This 
brought on a severe attack of his old heart trouble, 
which completely prostrated him. His physician. Dr. 
Lincoln, succeeded, however, with much difficulty in 
arresting the disease for a time, and for a day or two 
prior he seemed greatl}^ improving. On Friday, how- 

* Collated from the press of the day. 



HIS LAST SICKNESS, DEATH AND FUNERAL. 27 1 

ever, he went down stairs without assistance, as he had 
done before, but it proved too much for his strength, 
and only with the aid of Governor McLane could he 
again reach his bed, or even rise from the sofa where he 
was sitting. From that time he continued to grow worse 
until about 6 o'clock Saturday evening, when Dr. 
Lincoln found him perfectly comfortable and apparently 
a little better. While his friends and attendants knew 
that he might pass away at any time, yet they had had 
no warning that the end was so near. Governor 
McLane entered the room at a little after ii o'clock 
and as he approached the General's bedside he heard an 
almost inaudible sigh, and the General was dead. 

AN ESCORT FOR GEN. JOHNSTON's REMAINS. 

At a meeting of Maryland Confederates at the 
residence of Gen. Bradley T. Johnson Sunday night, it 
was decided to testify their esteem for the memory of the 
late Joseph E. Johnston by sending a committee to 
Washington to attend the funeral ceremonies there and 
to serve as an escort to Baltimore. The following gen- 
tlemen compose the committee: Gen. George H. Steu- 
art, Gen. Bradley T. Johnson, Adjt.-Gen. J. Howard, 
Col. John S. Saunders, Major Thomas W. Hall, Gen. 
John Gill, Col. Charles Marshall, Major W. S. Syming- 
ton, Capt. F. M. Colston, W. H. Fitzgerald, J. 
McKenny White, M. B. Brown, Brig. -Gen. Stewart 
Brown, M. N. G., Gen. Joseph L. Brent, Winfield 
Peters, McHenry Howard, Skipwith Wilmer, Joseph 
Packard, Jr., Capt. George W. Booth, Capt. J. S. 



272 LIFE OF^W^^ JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

Maury, C. S. N., Gen. R. Snowden Andrews, Capt. 
Frank H. Smith, J. Southgate Lemon, Dr. Gary B. 
Gamble, Col. D. G. Mcintosh, Capt. C. M. Morris, U. 
S. N., R. Curzon Hoffman and George C. Jenkins. It 
is intended that Confederates generally shall assemble at 
the depot to await the arrival of the train. 

But for the expressed wish of the old hero and the 
irremovable objections of his relatives, Baltimore would 
have made the interment of Gen. Joseph E. Johnston in the 
quiet and beautiful shades of Greenmount Cemetery an 
event in keeping with the lofty personal and military 
character of the gallant Confederate who has so soon 
followed his famous antagonist on the field of war, 
Gen. W. T. Sherman, to the grave. 

It was the wish of the Confederate societies and 
others to have a grand military funeral, and to call out 
the Fifth Regiment and Fourth Battalion and the ex-Con- 
federates, but it was deemed by those who knew Gen. 
Johnston best to be more in keeping with his simple and 
unostentatious tastes and habits, to bear his remains 
quietly to their last resting place, and inter them with 
only those ceremonies of the church which attend the 
burial of the humblest and most inconspicuous of men. 

The Maryland Confederates used every endeavor con- 
sistent with good taste to change, in a degree, this 
determination, but in vain. Not even the acceptance of 
the escort of a committee was deemed by the relatives 
in keeping with Gen. Johnston's commands. The people 
will, however, be able to manifest their respect for his 
memory to-morrow by gathering at Union Station when 



HIS LAST SICKNESS, DEATH AND FUNERAL. 273 

the funeral train arrives, as suggested below by the 
Committee. 

Understanding that the immediate family of the 
General desired a perfectly private and quiet funeral, a 
committee was appointed to await upon them and 
earnestly request that the society of the Army and Navy 
of the Confederate States and representatives of Mary- 
land National Guard be permitted to attend and take 
such part in the funeral ceremonies as would testify the 
affection and respect of the people of Maryland for Gen. 
Johnston. 

The committee, consisting of Gen. Bradley T. Johnson, 
Col. John S. Saunders, Maj. N. S. Hill, Col. John Gill, 
Majo^ Thomas W. Hall, Col. William A. Boykin, of 
the Fifth Regiment, and Gen. Joseph L. Brent, waited 
upon Mr. James L. McLane, representing the nearest 
friends and relatives of Gen. Johnston, and laid their 
request before him. 

Gen. Stewart Brown and Col. Boykin authorized the 
committee to tender the escort of the Maryland National 
Guard, and the committee offered an escort of 10,000 
men, asked that the funeral be postponed until Thursday, 
and promised if this delay was accorded, that every 
Southern State should be represented and a demonstra- 
tion made of the whole Southern people for Gen. 
Johnston. 

Mr. McLane thanked the committee for their tender 
and for the feeling with which it was made, but said that 
Gen. Johnston had recently told him distinctly that he 
wished to be buried as privately as possible, with only 



274 LIFE ni — f^m JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

the ceremonies of his church. In deference to Gen. 
Johnston's wishes, so recently and ernphatically ex- 
pressed, he was obliged to decline with regret the offer 
of the committee. 

To this the committee answered that Gen. Johnston 
was endeared to millions of his fellow-citizens by his 
eminent services and patriotic devotion to the public 
interests, and that he was a special object of affection to 
the majority of the people of at least eleven States of the 
Union, while the whole country held him in the highest 
esteem, and that it would be a shock to the sensibilities 
of his friends and admirers if no opportunity were given 
to express their feelings of love and veneration by honor- 
ing his remains upon their interment. 

But Mr. McLane said the funeral must take place on 
Tuesday morning, and that the family could not consent 
to any departure from the distinctly private character 
determined upon in deference to the wishes of the 
deceased General. He added, in answer to an inquiry, 
that an escort of the Confederate Association could not 
be accepted, as it would give a publicity to the funeral 
not in harmony with the family's views. 

Washington, March 23, 1891. 

This morning the body of Gen. joseph E. Johnston 
was attired in a plain black suit and placed in the casket, 
after which it was conveyed to the front parlor of the 
residence. 

It was an ordinary civilian's suit, and every appear- 
ance of military cjisplay was studiously avoided. No 



HIS LAST SICKNESS, DEATH AND FUNERAL. 275 

badge, no button, no decoration of any shape or char- 
acter was either about the person or the casket of the 
dead General. On his breast was a small cluster of 
violets. There was absolutely no sign that the man had 
been one of the most conspicuous military leaders of 
his age. 

The casket is of the pattern ordinarily used for per- 
sons of Gen. Johnston's station. It is covered with 
heavy broad-cloth, and has silver bars and screws, but 
is devoid of any ornament. 

During the day hundreds of callers looked upon the 
thin face of the dead General. His appearance was 
natural, and the expression seemed to indicate that his 
death was painless, and peaceful. It was apparent, 
however, that his last illness had been a steady failure 
of vital powers, as he was very much emaciated. His 
face was very thin, and his hands were partially trans- 
parent. During his illness General Johnston had no 
appetite. He was sustained by small administrations of 
beef tea and kindred remedies. 

THE DATE OF HIS BIRTH. 

The silver plate on the coffin bears the inscription : 

Joseph E. Johnston, 

Born February, 3d, 1809, 

and 

Died March 21st, 1891. 



276 LIFE O^^HJv'. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

After the inscription was ordered it was positively 
ascertained that the date given of the General's birth 
was erroneous. The encyclopaedias and other works 
containing sketches of prominent men differ on this 
point. Some of them date General Johnston's birth at 
1807 and others 1809. On this point Dr. George Ben 
Johnston, of Richmond, a grand-nephew of the late 
General, said: 

**I had several controversies with my uncle in regard 
to his age. He was firmly convinced that he was born 
in 1809, while my information was that he was born in 
1807. Ex-Governor McLane also maintained that the 
General was born in 1809. Nor was the question 
determined until last night. I hunted out the old family 
Bible, and there, in the handwriting of General John- 
ston's father was the entry: * Joseph Eccleston, eighth 
son of Peter Johnston, &c., born February 3, 1807.' 
This, of course, was conclusive, and the plate will be 
changed so as to make it record the correct age." 

The register of the West Point Academy confirms 
this entry, and shows that the General was born in 1807. 
Upon entering West Point his age was given at 18 years 
and 5 months. He graduated 4 years later, in 1829, 
and taking these figures it is shown that the General was 
83 years of age on the 3d of last February. 

HE KNEW HE WAS FAILING. 

A friend of Gen. Johnston, who was with him a great 
deal during the last year or so, says that he was fully cog- 
nizant of his steadily failing physical powers, and that it 



HIS LAST SICKNESS, DEATH AND FUNERAL. 277 

was a source of serious annoyance and embarrassment 
to him. He had always prided himself upon his erect 
and soldierly bearing and his self-reliance. When the 
weakness incident to advancing age assailed him he 
uttered no complaint, but his friend observed that he felt 
the change. For instance, this friend remarked: 

*^Only a few weeks ago I accompanied the General 
home. We rode out in a car, and in front of his resi- 
dence the car was stopped. The conductor, who knew 
him well, noticing that the General was feeble and 
unsteady upon his feet, jumped off and extended his 
arm for support. The General declined it, saying that 
he needed no assistance. Upon entering the 
house he confessed to me that he had realized his weak- 
ness, and he added : *Of late my legs have been unsteady 
at times and they are much thinner than formerly.' " 

Services will be held at St. John's Church at ii 
o'clock, and will be conducted by Rev. Dr. Douglass. 
At the conclusion of the ceremonies at the church the 
remains will be conveyed directly to Baltimore for inter- 
ment at Greenmount Cemetery. The honorary pall- 
bearers will be as follows : Senator John T. Morgan, 
of Alabama ; Senator John W. Daniel, of Virginia ; 
Hon. J. L. M. Curry ; Gen. John G. Parked, U. S. A., 
Gen. Dabney H. Maury, Gen. Charles W. Field, Gen. 
Harry Heth, Rear-Admiral C. R. P. Rodgers, Rear- 
Admiral W. G. Temple, Gen. H. G. Wright, Gen. 
Benjamin W. Brice ; Col. Archer Anderson, of Rich- 
mond ; Col. Edwin G. Harris, Hon. J. C. Bancroft 
Davis and Gen. James Watmaugh. 



27S LIFE OP ff^N. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

The active pall-bearers at the funeral will be furnished 
by the ex-Confederates' Association of this city. They 
are all men who fought under General Johnston, and 
who hold his name in veneration. They are Captain 
T. J. Luttrell, Private W. A. Gordon, Private Charles 
Wheatley ; Major Anderson, president of the associa- 
tion ; Major H. L. Biscoe, Surgeon W. P. Young, 
Private Lee Robinson and Captain J. W. Drew. 

The expressed wish of the family is that there be as 
little demonstration as possible, and for that reason 
requests from military and other organizations that they 
be permitted to act as escort have all been rejected. 
Gov. McKinney, of Virginia, telegraphed ex-Governor 
McLane this morning asking if the presence of military 
companies from Virginia at the funeral would be agree- 
able. He was at once informed that neither civic or 
military organizations were desired, and replied that he 
would attend the funeral in person, accompanied by 
other State officials. 

Among the telegrams received by Governor McLane 
to-day were the following : 

New York, March 23, 1891. 
Ex-Governor McLane, Washington : The family of 
General Sherman desire to tender to the relatives of 
General Johnston assurances of their profound sorrow 
and sympathy. P. T. Sherman. 

Lexington, Va., March 23, 1891. 
Governor Robert M. McLane : We have just heard 
of General Johnston's death, and tender our heartfelt 



HIS LAST SICKNESS, DEATH AND FUNERAL. 2/9 

sympathies to his family in their bereavement. We 
regret our inabiHty to attend his funeral. 

G. W. C. Lee. 
W. H. F. Lee. 
R. E. Lee. 

Savannah, Ga., March 23, 1891. 
Ex-Governor McLane : My wife and I, long-time 
loving friends of our dead General, send our deep sym- 
pathy and sorrow to his family. His death, a keen 
personal loss to us, goes deep to the hearts of his Con- 
federate soldiers and friends. G. M. Sorrell. 

HiLLSBORO, Ala., March 23, 1891. 
Ex-Governor McLane, Washington : We join in the 
universal and unutterable regret that we no longer have 
our beloved General. Joseph Wheeler. 

Grenada, Miss., March 23, 189 1. 
General Johnston had my admiration and affection, 
and his family have my sincere sympathy. 

E. C. Walthall. 

There were many others from prominent men and 
others who had served under General Johnston during 
the war. Marcus Bernheimer, of St. Louis, telegraphed 
the sympathy of the ex-soldiers in that city. J. B. 
Washington sent a message of condolence from White 
Hall, Pa. Archer Anderson, from Richmond; Living- 
ston Minas, from Atlanta; A. R. Lawton, from Savan- 
nah, and various others in different sections. 



28o LIFE 0?^«lt«-. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

The Cotton Exchange of Savannah sent a message 
through its president, J. P. Merrehew. The Confed- 
erate Veterans' Association of Jefferson county, Ala., 
and the Confederate Veterans' Association of Kentucky 
also sent messages. In acknowledgement of the nu- 
merous telegrams received Mr. McLane this afternoon 
furnished for publication the following: 

**Pbeg to acknowledge the receipt of numerous tele- 
grams and cards expressing regret and affection, as well 
as admiration for the late Gen. Joseph E. Johnston, and, 
though I have not been able personally to express my 
entire sympathy with them in their sentiments, I have 
had the opportunity to communicate them to his family, 
who gratefully accept and appreciate them, and request 
me to make this acknowledgement. 

RoBT. M. McLane." 

An informal meeting of Union .soldiers of Baltimore 
decided to attend the funeral of Gen. Johnston. They 
met at the office of Col. G. W. F. Vernon. It was 
stated that they desired to show their respect to the 
memory of the Confederate chieftain whom Sherm.an 
and Grant recognized as a friend. Col. Vernon pre- 
sided, and Sergt. C. Armour Newcomer was secretary. 
Cole's cavalry and the first, fourth, sixth and tenth 
Maryland regiments were represented. The following 
announced that they would follow the remains of Gen. 
Johnston to the grave: Col. G. W. F. Vernon, Gen. 
W. E. W. Ross, Sergt. C. A. Newcomer, George W. 
Welch and Capt. Wm. H. Taylor, 



HIS LAST SICKNESS, DEATH AND FUNERAL. 281 

Nearly four years ago Gen. Johnston came to Balti- 
more and had two graves dug in Greenmount Cemetery — 
one for himself and the other for his wife. He had 
them bricked up, and, as his friend. Gen. Bradley T. 
Johnson, expressed it, "^^he had his grave made as com- 
fortable as possible." 

The funeral of Gen. Joseph E. Johnston took place 
Tuesday morning, March 24, 1891, from St. John's 
Church, Washington. The ceremonies were of the 
simplest character, and when contrasted with the pomp 
and splendor which has characterized the recent burials 
of other heroes of the war was strikingly unostentatious. 
The funeral procession formed at the late residence of 
the deceased, on Connecticut avenue, and proceeded 
directly to the church. The honorary pall-bearers. 
Senator John T. Morgan, of Alabama; Senator John 
W. Daniel, of Virginia; Hon. J. L. M. Curry, Gen. 
John G. Walker, Gen. Charles W. Field, Gen. Harry 
Heth, Rear-Admiral C. R. P. Rodgers, Rear-Admiral 
W. G. Temple, General H. C. Wright, General 
Benjamin W. Brice, Col. Archer Anderson, of Rich- 
mond; Col. Edwin G. Harris, Hon. J. C. Bancroft 
Davis and Gen. James .Watmaugh, occupied carriages 
immediately following the hearse, and after them came 
the carriages containing the relatives of the deceased 
General and friends of the family. The active pall 
bearers, selected from the Confederate Veterans' Asso- 
ciation, preceded the hearse. They were T. J. Luttrell, 
W. A. Gordon, Charles Wheatley, Major Anderson, 
Major H. L. Biscoe, W. P. Young, Lee Robinson and 
J. W. Drew. 



282 LIFE ^^I^^N. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

AN ESCORT OF CONFEDERATE VETERANS. 

At the head of the column, and acting as an escort, 
marched about 30 members of R. E. Lee Camp of Con- 
federate Veterans, from Alexandria, commanded by Col. 
W. A. Smoot. The appearance of this organization in 
uniform and marching as a body was contrary to the 
wishes of the dead General's family. The members of 
the organization, however, had no intention of failing to 
respect these expressed desires regarding organizations 
in line, but so many of them assembled at the Johnston 
residence, each anxious to pay a last tribute of respect 
and affection to their dead commander, that they invol- 
untarily formed a feature of the procession which it was 
intended should be lacking. On the way to the church 
the veterans were joined by Col. Robert I. Fleming, a 
member of R. E. Lee Camp of Veterans, of Richmond; 
Gen. John M. Corse and Col. John S. Mosby, who 
marched at the head of the column beside Col. Smoot. 

THE SCENE AT THE CHURCH. 

When the procession reached the church a large 
crowd of interested spectators, including a large number 
of veterans of both armies, had assembled, and except 
the pews reserved for the funeral party the seats were 
already well filled and a number of people were waiting 
to gain admittance. The veterans opened a way through 
the crowd to the door leading into the chancel of 
the church, and then formed a line, in front of 
which the casket was borne by the active pall-bearers. 
The honorary pall-bearers followed and were in turn 



HIS LAST SICKNESS, DEATH AND FUNERAL. 283 

followed by the relatives and friends of the family. As 
the coffin was borne slowly to the church door the entire 
assemblage outside the church stood with uncovered 
heads, showing evident feelings of veneration, which in 
its earnestness was an impressive as any pomp of 
military display could have been. Inside the church, as 
the casket was borne into the vestibule of the building, 
the organ pealed forth a funeral march. 

THE CHORISTERS. 

A tnoment later its tones were mingling with the 
fresh voices of the choristers rising in a solemn chant. 
The singers were not visible at first, but as the music 
continued they entered the chancel, marching slowly, 
and took up their positions on either side of the altar. 
They were followed by Rev. Dr. Douglass, the pastor 
of the church, who was accompanied by Rev. Dr. Mc- 
Kim, pastor of Epiphany church. The two clergymen 
proceeded across the church to the door on the H-street 
side, and, turning there, led in the funeral cortege. 
The casket was placed in front of the altar rail, where, 
despite the wishes of the family- to the contrary, several 
handsome floral offerings had been surreptitiously placed, 
and those in attendance took their places in the body of 
the church. 

BURIAL SERVICE. 

The services were then conducted by Rev. Dr. Doug- 
lass, and consisted simply of the ordinary service of the 
Episcopal church for the burial of the dead, interspersed 
with hymns impressively rendered by the choristers. At 



284 LIFE dl^ll^. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

their conclusion the body was conveyed from the church, 
and, followed by those who occupied carriages, was 
taken at once to the Baltimore and Potomac Depot and 
was placed on a train for Baltimore. 

So unostentatiously were all the simple arrangements 
carried out that even the railroad officials were not 
aware that the body was going to be shipped on the 12.15 
train, while most of the people who composed the 
surging crowd about the depot were entirely ignorant 
of the fact that the remains of the last great General 01 
the w^ar were being taken to their last resting-place. 

Those who followed the remains to the depot drove 
away as soon as the body had been placed in charge of 
the train officials, except a small party which had been 
selected to accompany the remains to Baltimore. The 
party consisted of Mr. Allan McLane and Dr. John- 
ston, of Richmond, representing the family ; Senator 
Daniel, of Virginia, and one or two others, representing 
the honorary pall-bearers ; Major Anderson and Briscoe,, 
representing the active pall-bearers, and also the Con- 
federate Veterans' Association of this city, and Prof. W. 
D. Cabell, representing the Sons of the Revolution. 
Governor McLane and the other relatives of the deceased 
followed the remains to Baltimore on a train at 2 o'clock.- 

SOME OF THOSE PRESENT. 

Among those who attended the services at the church 
were Vice-President Morton, Gen. D. H. Maury, Gov. 
McKinney, of Virginia ; Mayor Ellyson, of Richmond; 
ex-Senator Wade Hampton, Gen. Greely, Fish Com- 



HIS LAST SICKNESS, DEATH AND FUNERAL. 285 

missioner McDonald and Prof. Cabell, constituting a 
committee to represent the Sons of the Revolution ; Col. 
John Gill, Gen. Bradley T, Johnson, Major Thomas 
Mackall, Irving A. Buck, J. Boykin Lee, Wilson M. 
Cary, and Col. John S. Saunders, of Baltimore; Major 
Wood, of Richmond ; Senator Cockrell, Senator Man- 
derson, Civil Service Commissioner Thompson, Senator 
Hawley, Gen. Alex. P. Stewart, Col. James G. Berrett, 
Representative McMillan, Gen. Rosecrans, Gen. Eppa 
Hunton, ex-Solicitor-General Goode, Senator Butler, 
Gen. Beverly Robinson, Judge Hughes, of Virginia ; 
Captain Garden, President of the Southern Society of 
New York ; Major Green Clay Goodloe, of the Marine 
Corps ; Gen. Veazey, commander-in-chief of the Grand 
Army of the Republic ; M. W. Gait, Col. Richard 
Wintersmith, ex-District Attorney Hoge, and a host of 
ex-Confederate veterans from this city and the South. 

ARRIVAL OF THE BODY IN BALTIMORE. 

When the body arrived at Union Station, at half-past 
I o'clock, a good-sized delegation of old Confederate 
soldiers, with a sprinkling of those who wore the blue, 
were waiting to receive it. It was taken from the bag- 
gage car and wheeled across that station on a truck, 
from which it was lifted by a dozen pairs of willing 
hands. The casket was carried to the hearse by Messrs. 
James L. McLane and Louis McLane and the under- 
taker's men through two long lines of ex-Confederates, 
headed by Adjutant-General James Howard, with Col. 
J. Lyle Clark acting as adjutant. The men lifted their 



286 LIFE OFG^. 



JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 



hats reverently as the casket passed before them, and 
after it had been placed in tl\e hearse and taken to 
Greenmount Cemetery they gathered about the station in 
little groups and spoke lovingly of the old General. 

AT THE CEMETERY. 

Messrs. James L. McLane, Louis McLane and Allan 
McLane, Jr., followed Gen. Johnston's body to the 
cemetery. R. M. Chambers and James McKee, of the 
Maryland line, also went to the cemetery and assisted in 
placing the body in the mausoleum, whence it will be 
interred in the grave Gen. Johnston had himself pre- 
pared at some future day. 

SOLDIERS OF BOTH ARMIES. 

Among those who met the body at the depo. were 
Capt. Chas. N. Claiborne, Capt. H. H. Lewis, Wm. H. 
Pope, Wm. H. Thomas, Lieut. J. W. Elliott, Wm. C. 
Thomas, D. W. Stubbs, Major Stuart Symington, S. 
Clotworthy, S. W. Dorsey, W. S. Skidmore, Frank X. 
Ward, Major F. H. Wigfall, Gustav Lurman, Joseph L. 
Brent, S. H. Richardson, Col. Levin Lake, F. F. 
Presstman, Charles W. Small, Col. George R. Gaither, 
John H. Briscoe, Herman Stump, Rev. Wm. H. Dame, 
Rev. A. DeR. Mears, F. M. Duvall, James K. Har- 
wood. Dr. T. K. Ward, B. S. Hackney, Andrew C. 
Trippe, Henry A. Wise, George W. Wood, Thomas C. 
Pugh, Joshua Thomas, McHenry Howard, James 
Murray, George A. Streiber, W. R. Woody, Capt. 
Maury, Capt. F. M. Colston and Major Geo. C. Wed- 



HIS LAST SICKNESS, DEATH AND FUNERAL. 287 

derburn. Among the Federal soldiers present were 
Gen. John R. Kenly, Col. Geo. W. F. Vernon, Capt. 
W. D. Burchinal, Capt. Wm. H. Taylor, Capt. L. M. 
Zimmerman, Sergt. C. A. Newcomer and Gen. W. E. 
W. Ross. 

The Baltimore Sun has the following : 

**The military career of Gen. Joseph E. Johnston, 
which began over sixty years ago, was marked by con- 
spicuous gallantry at the outset, and by masterly general- 
ship against overwhelming odds at the close. In Florida 
and in Mexico he exhibited a daring courage, which 
was proved by the number of his wounds, and at the 
same time demonstrated that his military abilities were 
of a very high order. Inheriting a martial spirit from 
his father, who, when a mere lad, became a revolution- 
ary soldier, he was wedded to his profession, which was 
for him, as it was for Lee, a noble science, to which he 
dedicated all his energies. With Lee, he was one of 
the most notable of the group of young officers who 
before the war were regarded as *' coming men" in the 
army — a group that included several Marylanders, with 
whom both Johnston and Lee were on terms of affec- 
tionate intimacy. When the war began he, like Lee, 
resigned his commission rather than fight against his 
native State, Virginia, and it was on Virginia's soil that 
he contributed so largely to the first brilliant victory of 
the Confederacy — the first Bull Run or Manassas. While 
the credit for that remarkable triumph must be shared 
by him with Beauregard, it cannot be denied that but for 
his strategy in rendering Patterson's forces inoperative 



288 



LIFE OfN^^^ JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 



and marching to the assistance of Beauregard, the latter 
probably would not have been able to crush McDowell 
and to put his army to so demoralizing a rout as that 
which followed the battle. Unfortunately, General 
Johnston's ideas as to the proper method of conducting 
operations came into conflict with those of the authorities 
at Richmond, and it has been claimed, and probably 
with justice, on his behalf, that he was not permitted to 
work out to their full fruition the plans he had formed 
for baffling Sherman. His value to the Confederacy 
was seen, however, in the disasters that followed his 
removal from command, and his military reputation was 
fully vindicated when President Davis and his advisers 
turned to him in their extremity as the only man capable 
of repairing the damage that had been done. But it 
was then too late, and although General Johnston loyally 
exerted himself to the utmost of his powers, the doomed 
Confederacy toppled to its fall. Johnston stands with 
Lee and Jackson among the great commanders of the 
Confederacy, and Virginia, w^hich may be called the 
mother of generals as well as the mother of presidents, 
has every reason to be proud of her distinguished son. 
A pure, high-minded gentleman, an intrepid soldier, 
a master of the art of war, whom the greatest of his 
enemies respected and feared, he presents to us and to 
those who come after us a noble type of the cultured 
American." 

*'The closing years of his life were spent in the service 
of a re-united countrj^ — that country for which he had 
fought and bled in his earlier years, and in peaceful and 



HIS LAST SICKNESS, DEATH AND FUNERAL. 289 

friendly intercourse with those whom he had confronted 
as enemies on the field of battle. It was singularly 
appropriate that his last notable appearances before the 
public should have been as the central figure at the 
unveiling of the Richmond monument to Lee, the com- 
rade and friend of his youth and his follow-hero of the 
Confederacy, and as one of the chief mourners at the 
bier of his old adversary, Sherman, who preceded him 
by only a few short weeks to the grave." 

This distinguished soldier has quickly followed to the 
grave General Sherman, his one time great adversary in 
war, and almost life-long friend in peace. He was 
the oldest and next to the last of the highest Confed- 
erates of high rank. He fought in three wars, the 
Seminole Indian Florida war, the Mexican war and the 
war of the Rebellion. He was wounded in all of them, 
and yet lived to the age of 84 years. Gen. Johnston 
was accounted a very accomplished and skillful soldier 
during the war of the Rebellion, but circumstances, and 
the personal hostility of Jefferson Davis, were against 
him. He had occasion to complain bitterly of the 
interference of Davis, who, being a West Point graduate 
and a man of imperious will, had a great deal to say 
about military operations, and was as much of a hind- 
rance to the Generals in the field, except Lee, as were 
the closet soldiers in Washington who tried so disast- 
rously to direct Federal operations before the coming of 
Grant. Since the war Gen. Johnston has been earnestly 
engaged in restoring good feeling between the sections, 
and quickly renewed his friendship with Generals Sher- 
man and Grant. 



290 LIFE Ol^^i^. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

Indeed there was something akin in the treatment 
received by these great rival soldiers — Johnston and 
Sherman — by meddling semi-military officials on the 
opposite sides in the war. Johnston was the object of 
unrelenting hatred by Davis, operating from Richmond 
in Tennessee and Georgia, during Sherman's memor- 
able campaign from the mountains towards the sea, 
while Sherman was subjected at the very close of his 
brilliant campaign and priceless service to the country 
to cruel aspersion and insult, almost immediately upon 
the death of Lincoln, by Secretary Stanton, who then 
happened to be in possession of power. 



GEN. DABNEY H. MAURY's REMINISCENCES. 29I 



CHAPTER XX. 

GEN. DABNEY H. MAURY's REMINISCENCES. 

I FIRST saw Gen. Johnston at Vera Cruz in March, 
1847, when, after a bombardment of two weeks, 
the city raised the white flag, and Gen. Scott appomted 
Capt. Robert E. Lee and Capt. Joseph E. Johnston, of 
his staff, to go into the place and arrange the terms of 
its surrender. They were then distinguished young 
officers, intimate friends to each other, and their martial 
appearance, as they rode, superbly mounted, to meet 
the Mexican officers, gave a general feeling of satis- 
faction to our army, that such representatives of the 
** North Americans" had been chosen for such an 
occasion. 

A few days before Gen. Scott had published to his 
army a congratulatory order announcing *'the great 
victory won by the successful Gen. Taylor ^^ on the 
field of Buena Vista. We young Virginians felt very 
proud that day. 

After disposing of Vera Cruz we moved on towards 
the City of Mexico. The army marched along the 
great National road made by the old Spaniards till 
about April 12th, when some cannon-shots from Cerro 
Gordo checked the advance guard of our cavalry, and 
made us know Santa Anna was prepared to give us 
battle there. 



292 LIFE O^^I^N. TQSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

WOUNDED IN MEXICO. 

Capt. Johnston was ordered to make a reconnoissance 
of his position. **C" company of Rifles (now Third 
cavalry) was a part of his escort, I being attached to it. 
We had been halted in the timber, just out of sight of 
the enemy, some twenty minutes, when we heard the 
rattle of musketry, and a few minutes later the order 
came *'fall back to the right and left of the road" to let 
the bearers of Capt. Johnston pass by. He had received 
two severe wounds while making a darmg reconnois- 
sance, and was borne back to Plan Del Rio, and placed 
m the most airy house in the village, where I also was 
borne, five days later, being severely wounded. 

Stevens Mason, captain of the Rifles, was taken thej»e 
also, and a few days after, Lieut. Derby (John Phoenix) 
was brought in and laid on a cot by my side. 

A DISCIPLINARIAN. 

The rooms were separated by partitions Ox reeds, which 
admitted the passage of air and sound, and we could 
converse from one room to another. Derby's coarse 
humor was irrepressible. Nothing could stop it, and it 
gave annoyance, especially to Capt. Johnston, who was 
as pure as a woman in word and thought. But he lay 
quiescent, without any expression of pain, though his 
wounds were the most grievous of all, and silently en- 
dured Derby's jokes till he heard him one day order his 
servant to catch a lamb from a passing ^ock and have 
it cooked for dinner. Then he lifted up his voice and 
said: '*If you dare to do that, sir, I will have you court- 
martialed." 



GEN. DABNEY II. MAURY S REMINISCENCES. 293 

After ten days Gen. Scott had all of us borne on 
litters up to the beautiful city of Jalapa, where we were 
in a dehcious climate and luxurious quarters. 

After getting strength enough to walk to Capt. (now 
Col.) Johnston's quarters — he had been promoted to the 
lieutenant-colonelcy of the fine regiment of voltigeurs — 
I went to see him every day, and we there formed 
an attachment which ever grew until the end. His 
nephew, the gallant young Preston Johnston, of the 
artillery, was his constant companion and nurse. Ten 
months later both had been shot down in battle **in 
the valley." Young Preston Johnston was killed in- 
stantly. His uncle, then heading the voltigeurs at 
Chapultepec, was again severely wounded. 

TENDER AFFECTION. 

Only a month ago he told me with deep feeling of 
his distress on hearing of his brave boy's death, and 
how Lee, who broke the news to him, wept as he 
grasped his hand and told it. The affection between 
these two great men was very tender. 

A COMPARISON. 

After the Mexican war we met no more on duty until 
about 1858, when a board of cavalry officers was 
assembled in Washington to establish a uniform equip- 
age for our cavalry and artillery regiments. We were 
occupied several weeks on this business in Winder's 
building, where during the same time Capt. William B. 
Franklin and Raphael Semmes were serving together 
on the light-house board. 



294 LIFE O^^^^. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

One day, after our daily session, Franklin said: "Now 
that you have seen Lee and Johnston working together 
for some weeks, how do you estimate the two men ? In 
previous discussion I had thought Lee more full of promise 
and capacity." 

I said: ** While both are as earnest and intelligent as 
possible, I have noticed that Col. Lee often yields his 
opinions to those of the board, or of other members of it, 
while Col. Johnston has never on any occasion yielded 
his, but frequently has made the board yield to him. In 
fact, he is the one man who seems to have come to his 
work with a clear and fixed idea of what is needed in 
every detail of it." 

CORDIAL INTERCOURSE. 

Our intercourse, as you know, has been cordial and 
even affectionate ever since we met in Mexico. I was 
with him for a few days after the first battle of Manassas, 
and accompanied him as he rode over the field, and 
described the course and incidents of the fight. Then, 
I being ordered to the West, met him no more until 
about Christmas, 1862. When he came to our army at 
Grenada with President Davis, who reviewed and 
inspected it, the army was in position in our entrench- 
ments on the Yallabusha. I commanded the centre, 
and was in my place when Gen. Johnston rode out from 
the President's cortege^ greeted me most cordially, and 
asked me to ride with him, which we did for several 
hours. 

A MISTAKE. 

He had iust returned from an inspection of Vicksburg, 



GEN. DABNEY H. MAURY S REMINISCENCES. 295 

and told me he had never seen so much fortification, and 
thought it a mistake to keep so large an army in an en- 
trenched camp ; that the army ought to be in the field ; 
that a heavy work should be constructed to command 
the river just above Vicksburg, at*' the turn," with a 
year's supply for a good garrison of about 3,000 men, 
which would guard the river better than the long Ime of 
dispersed guns and entrenchments and troops which 
extended above and below Vicksburg for more than 
twenty miles. 

While commandmg the Department of the Gulf, I 
occasionally sent him supplies of provisions, troops, and 
some siege pieces, which he mounted on the works at 
Atlanta, declaring thereby his intention to ^'keep that 
place.'' After his removal from command, I received 
this very interesting letter from him: 

GENERAL JOHNSTON's LETTER. 

Macon, Ga., September i, 1864. 

My dear Maury — I have been intending ever since 
my arrival at this place to pay a part of the epistolary 
debt I owe you. But you know how lazy it makes one 
to have nothing to do, and so with the hot weather we 
have been enduring here I have absolutely devoted 
myself to idleness. I have been disposed to write more 
particularly of what concerns myself — to explain to you 
as far as practicable the operations for which I was laid 
on the shelf, for you are one of the last whose unfavor- 
able opinion I should be willing to incur. 

You know that the army I commanded was that which, 
under Gen. Bragg, was routed at Missionary Ridge. 
Sherman's army was that which routed it, reinforced 
by the Sixteenth and Twenty-third corps. I am cen- 
sured for not taking the offensive at Dalton — where the 



296 LIFE G^^^^\ JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

enemy, if beaten, had a secure refuge behind the 
fortified gap at Ringgold, or in the fortress of Chatta- 
nooga, and where the odds against us were almost as 
ten to four. At Resaca he received five brigades, near 
Kingston three, and about 3,500 cavalry, at New Hope 
church one — in all about 14,000 infantry and artillery. 
The enemy received the Seventeenth corps and a number 
of garrisons and bridge guards from Tennessee and Ken- 
tucky that had been relieved by *' 100-day men." 

FOUGHT EVERY DAY. 

I am blamed for not fighting. Operations com- 
menced about the 6th of May. I was relieved on the 
i8th of July. In that time we fought daily, always 
under circumstances so favorable to us as to make it 
certain that the sum of the enemy's losses was five 
times ours, which was 10,000. Northern papers rep- 
resented theirs up to about the end of June at 45,000. 
Sherman's progress was at the rate of a mile and a 
quarter a day. Had this style of fighting been allowed 
to continue, is it not clear that we would soon have been 
able to give battle with abundant chances of victory? 
and that the enemy, beaten on this side of the Chatta- 
hoochee, would have been destroyed? 

Sherman's army stronger. 

It is certain that Sherman's army was stronger, com- 
pared with that of Tennessee, than Grant's, compared 
with that of Northern Virginia. Gen. Bragg asserts 
that Sherman's was absolutely stronger than Grant's. 
It is well known that the army of Virginia was much 
superior to that of Tennessee. Why, then, should I be 
condemned for the defensive, while Gen. Lee was add- 
ing to his great fame by the same course? Gen. Bragg 
seems to have earned at Missionary Ridge his present 
high position. People report at Columbus and Mont- 
gomery that Gen. Bragg said that my losses had been 
frightful ; that I had disregarded the wishes and instruc- 
tions of the President 5 that he had in vain implored me 



GEN. DABNEY H. MAURY's REMINISCENSES. 297 

to change my course, by which, I suppose, it is meant 
assume the offensive. 



UTTERLY UNTRUE. 

As these things are utterly untrue; it is not to be 
supposed that they were said by Gen. Bragg. The 
President gave me no instructions, and expressed no 
wishes, except just before we reached the Chattahoo- 
chee, warning me not fight with the river behind us, 
and against crossing it, and previously he urged me not 
to allow Sherman to detach to Grant's aid. Gen. Bragg 
passed some ten hours with me just before I was relieved, 
and gave me the impression that his visit to the army 
was casual, he being on his way further west, to en- 
deavor to get us reinforcements from Kirby Smith and 
Lee. I thought him satisfied with the state of things, 
but not so with that in Virginia. He assured me that he 
had always maintained in Richmond that Sherman's 
army w^as stronger than Grant's. He said nothing of 
the intention to relieve me, but talked with Gen, Hood 
on the subject, as I learned after my removal. 

THE OBJECT. 

It is clear that his expedition had no other purpose 
than my removal, and the giving proper direction to 
public opinion on the subject. He could have had no 
other object m going to Montgomery. A man of honor 
in his place would have communicated with me, as well 
as Hood, on the subject. Being expected to assume the 
offensive, he attacked, on the 20th, 22d and 28th of July, 
disastrously losing more men than I had done in seventy- 
two days. Since then his defensive has been at least as 
quiet as mine was. But you must be tired of this. 

HOSPITABLE GEORGIANS. 

We are living very quietly and pleasantly here. The 
Georgians have been very hospitable. We stopped here 
merely because it was the first stopping place. 



290 LIFE OP^i^N. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

ber us cordially to Mrs. Maur}. Tell her that the gloves 
arrived most opportunely. Mine had just been lost, and 
it would have been impossible to buy more, and they are 
lovely. 

Just before I left the army, we thought the odds 
against us had been reduced almost six to four. I have 
not supposed, therefore, that Sherman could either invest 
Atlanta or carry it by assault. 

Very truly yours, 

Major-Gen. Maury. J. E. Johnston. 

Since the great war between the States, we have 
been often so associated as to impress me with the 
tender nature which underlay the martial mind and 
person of our great soldier. As a host, and v/ith his 
wife, he was attentive and tender above all men. She 
was very humorous and jovial, and delighted to have 
a joke on him, and he enjoyed it from her as heartily 
as any of us. 

WHY don't you run AWAY? 

One day, at Sweet Chalybeate Springs, a party of 
us, •as usual, assembled before dinner around one of 
John Dabney's great hail-storm juleps. The General 
was sitting near the baluster of the portico, which 
overlooked the walk beneath, and deep in some nar- 
rative, when he was interrupted by a shriek, which 
startled us all, and broke in upon his story. After 
looking over to learn the cause of such a yell, he 
re-commenced his story, but was again interrupted as 
before. Again he looked, and then again resumed, 
only to be interrupted a third time. Then, fierce as 
Mars, he looked down upon the screamer, and said; 



GEN. DABNEY H. MAURY S REMINISCENCES. 299 

**Why don't you run away? Why don't you run 
away?" I suggested: **Well, that's fine advice for a 
great general to give." Turning savagely upon me, 
he said: **If she will not fight, sir, is not the best 
thing for her to do to run away, sir?" Mrs. Johnston, 
with a burst of her hearty laugh, said: **That used 
to be your plan always, I know, sir." This relieved 
us all, and we burst into a laugh, in which he ioined 
as heartily as any. 

A TERRIBLE GOBBLER. 

The cause of all of this disturbance was a young 
woman in a red cloak, upon whom a turkey-gobbler 
charged. The girl stood still and shrieked with fear. 
The gobbler then wheeled in retreat, only to make an- 
other charge on the paralyzed woman, whose only 
course each time was to shake herself and shriek until 
somebody came and drove the gobbler away. 

elder's picture. 

The State of Virginia employed Jack Elder to paint 
his portrait — a good one it island now hangs in the ro- 
tunda of our capitol, beside Lee's. I was asked to go 
and keep him in chat while the artist was at work. The 
first sitting was occupied by him in discussing Napoleon, 
Marlborough and Wellington, and a short-hand writer 
might then have recorded the most terse critique ever 
pronounced on these great commanders. 

THE LITTLE CORPORAL. 

He placed Napoleon above all the Generals of history. 



300 LIFE OF'^^N. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

Marlborough he ranks above all Englishmen, and cen- 
sured Macaulay for allowing his partisan feelings for 
King William to transmit as history his aspersions of 
Marlborough. Wellington he considered a very great 
General, but denounced his brutality in Spain, in giving 
to sack, by the British soldiery, the cities of tlie people 
he was sent there to defend and protect. 

HIS OPINION OF FORREST. 

The next day we had another sitting, and he discussed 
the Generals of our war. He spoke most highly of For- 
rest, whom he had closely observed, and declared to be 
the greatest soldier the war produced. You know how 
keenly he felt that the Virginians had known so little of 
him in our war. His strongest desire was to be identi- 
fied with Virginia. 'Twas this caused him to agree to 
go to Congress, and, up to the last, he often expressed 
his wish to live in Virginia. 

A TRUE DESCRIPTION. 

One day, during his canvass for Congress, Mrs. 
Johnston, meeting me on Main street, said: **Can 
you tell me where my husband is?" I went at once, 
and found him, and said: *'The handsomest and 
brightest woman in Richmond is looking for her hus- 
band." *' There is but one woman in Richmond who 
answers that description, and she is my wife. I'll go 
to find her cit once." 

Some time after I heard he had been laid up by an 
accident to his leg, and went to see him. He was sit- 



GEN. DABNEY H. MAURY's REMINISCENCES. 3OI 

ting in the parlor, with his leg extended over a chair. 
His wife was by him, and affected to triumph over him 
in his crippled condition. I said: *^ That's very mi- 
o-rateful in you to so treat the husband who loves and 
admires you as h^ does," and then told her the above 
incident. She said: *'You old goose, you, do you let 
him fool you in that way? Don't you know he said 
that to you, knowing that you would come and tell 

me?" 

He joined heartily in the laugh, as he always did 
when she raised one at his expense. 

HIS TENDER CARE. 

You remember that ten years or so ago, Mrs. John- 
ston was very ill for many' weeks at the White Sulphur. 
The General nursed her with the ^tender care of a 
mother. He never left her, except to get a hurried 
meal, from which he hastened back to her sick cham- 
ber. Mrs. James Lyons was an active and constant 
friend, and so soon as Mrs. Johnston began to improve 
in health, she insisted that the General should relax his 
anxious watch, and induced him to take the air for an 
hour or two every day. But he would never go far 
from their cottage door, but sat upon a fallen tree on 
the lawn, in sight and sound of it, and conversed with 
a friend. On these occasions^ he talked all the time, 
and all he ever said was full of strong conviction and 
good sense. 

RETICENCE AND EMBARRASSMENT. 

Genial and confiding as he was to the friends he knew 



302 LIFE OfS^ijEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

and trusted, he was reticent and even aversive to those 
whom he did not like, and was quick to resent any free- 
dom or liberty from those he did'not like nor know. Of 
all men in the world, he was the least fitted for the work of 
canvassing a Virginia district, and he never went upon 
the hustings that his friends did not fear he would 
give offense to somebody, and in this we were sorely 
disappointed. He could not overcome his embarrass- 
ment in making an extempore speech, and therefore, 
tried to write out his speeches and get them by heart. 
But he found it impossible to commit to memory what he 
had written himself, though in .all other directions his 
memory was the most accurate and retentive. Towards 
the last years of his life he could not command it in 
little matters, and was often at a loss for the exact word 
he wished. This was a great trial to him, and in it he 
recognized the beginning of the end. There was a 
magnetic power about him no man could resist, and 
exact discipline followed at once upon his assuming any 
command. 

A WRETCHED CONDITION. 

When he took charge of the great army which had 
been defeated, and disorganized, before his arrival to its 
command, it was in wretched condition. Most of the 
general officers were in open hostility and avowed mis- 
trust of the general commanding, and indiscipline pre- 
vailed throughout. When Johnston came the change 
was instantaneous, and henceforth no army of the Con- 
federacy ever equaled Johnston's in drill and high dis- 
cipline. 



GEN. DABNEY H. MAURY S REMINISCENCES. 303 
HOW HE IMPROVED IT. 

Gen. Carter Stevenson was one of the division com- 
manders of that army, of the largest experience and 
military accomplishments. He had served in every army 
of the Confederacy, and actively in all of our wars since 
1834. He told me he had never seen any troops in such 
fine discipline and condition as Johnston's army the day 
he was moved from its command. 

Gen. Randall L. Gibson had been in constant action 
m the Western army (he it was who closed an honorable 
record by his masterly command of the defences near 
Spanish Fort, on the eastern shore of Mobile Bay, in the 
last battle of the war between the States), and says, that 
when Johnston assumed command of that army it was 
somewhat demoralized, but, when the campaign with 
Sherman opened, the worse regiment in it was equal to 
the best when he came to its command. A Missouri 
soldier, of Cockrell's brigade, which Johnston declared 
to be the best body of infantry he ever saw, was on his 
way back to his regiment, after recovery from a wound. 
I asked him, *'What do you all think of the change of 
commanders?" '' Oh, sir, we are mightily cut down 
about it! The bomb-proofs and the newspapers com- 
plain of his retreats. Why, we did not miss a meal 
from Dalton to Atlanta, and were alwa3^s ready for the 
fight. We never felt we were retreating." 

grant's opinion. 

During that campaign. Bishop Lay went to City Point 
to get a pass from Grant to enable him to return to his 



304 LIFE Ol^^^\ JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

home. He told me Grant sent for him, invited him to 
his headquarters, and talked freely with him for a long 
time. He seemed, to the Bishop, to feel that he was 
handling Sherman's army during that campaign. He 
said that the telegraph was a wonderful accessory of 
war; that every night he and Sherman conversed by it 
an hour or two about the movements of the army on that 
day, and what it was to do on the next. And, he said; 
**Bishop, when I heard your government had removed 
Johnston from command, I was as happy as if I had re- 
inforced Sherman with a large army corps." 

SCHOFIELD. 4 

During the past 3^ear, Gen. Johnston, responding to 
me, said in his emphatic manner: '*Yes, I consider 
Gen. Schoiield much the ablest soldier, and the highest 
gentleman, who has occupied that office since I have 
known it." 

Such a tribute, from such a source, must be very 
gratifying to such a soldier as Schofield is. And, you 
know, just praise is the breath of the soldier's life, and 
its highest aim 

THE BEST SHOT. 

The General bitterly deplored the long inaction 
which his severe wounds at Seven Pines enforced upon 
him. When he was lying at Mr. Crenshaw's, in Rich- 
mond, where he was brought from the field, his medical 
director, Dr. Fauntleroy, told me an old Virginian 
called to pay his respects and sympathy. 

He said: **Not only do« we deplore this cruel afflic- 



GEN. DABNEY H. MAURY's REMINISCENCES. 305 

tion upon you, General, but we feel it to be a national 
calamity." 

**No, sir," said Johnston, fiercely, rising suddenly 
upon his unbroken elbow, ^'The shot that struck me 
down was the best ever fired for the Southern Confed- 
eracy, for I possessed in no degree the confidence of 
this Government, and now a man who does enjoy it 
will succeed me, and be able to accomplish what I 
never could." 

EMBITTERED HIS LIFE. 

The consciousness of wrong done him, and of the 
non-appreciation by his Government, bore hardly upon 
him all through our long war, and was a misfortune 
for him and for our cause, and embittered his life to 
its end. Proud and unyielding as he was to injustice, 
he was quick and gentle in his symoathy ^or all that 
were weak and unfortunate. 

For over fifty years he was the tender, devoted lover 
of his wife, and was always true and affectionate to his 
kindred. He loved young people and drew them to him. 
He yearned for children of his own. He and my 
children were fervent friends. Only a few month's ago 
he said to me : ''You are truly blessed in your children," 
and it will ever be their, and my consolation, that we 
enjoyed his affection, for he was the honestest, bravest, 
and gentlest gentleman who ever gave us his trust and 
love. 

A STUDENT OF HISTORY. 

To the end of his life he was a student of history 
bearing upon his profession. During the past few 



306 LIFE OF ^^^ JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

months I found him reading memoirs of Tamerlane 
(Timur the Tartar), of which he read me nine striking 
pages, as on another day he read me with great feeling 
**Thiers' narrative of the last days of Napoleon at St. 
Helena.'* 

And the very last day I saw him — the last on which 
he left his chamber — I found him with DuGuesclin 
open before him. 

WE WILL MEET AGAIN. 

His disease had then become very grave and distress- 
ing. I sat by him but a short time, and expecting to go 
on a long journey next day I told him so, and said 
good-by. He crew me to him, kissed my cheek, then 
again kissed my lips tenderly as a father. I said: 
**We will meet again soon if the yellow fever don't 
carry me off." 

He said, with strong emotion and emphasis: **Yes, 
we will surely meet again." I never saw him any more. 

Dabney H. Maury. 



REMINISCENCES OF COL. ARCHER ANDERSON. 307 



CHAPTER XXI. 

REMINISCENCES OF COL. ARCHER ANDERSON. 

\/OU ask me to give you some recollections of my 
* intercourse with Gen. Joseph E. Johnston. I shall 
not attempt any formal estimate of his character as a 
commander of armies. That could only be undertaken 
after a careful review of all his campaigns. I will 
endeavor merely to recall some incidents, and conversa- 
tions, which may help to portray the inner, personal 
nature of the man, who was generally known to his 
countrymen only under the soldier's stern exterior. 

The circumstances of Gen. Johnston's early years 
were such as strongly to encourage the martial instincts 
which he inherited at his birth. To the end of his life 
he was accustomed to talk with pride of his father's 
distinguished service in the Revolutionary War as an 
officer of Lee's legion, and he would tell the story of 
the campaign in the Carolinas, as he heard it from Peter 
Johnston's lips, with all the fire that marked his own 
descriptions of Cerro Gordo or Chapultepec. 

The incidents of the war of i8 12-15 in America, and 
the distant reverberation of Waterloo, doubtless stirred 
the boy's heart, and, indeed, I once heard him describe 
to a child with some humor how in his seventh or eighth 
year he first proclaimed his purpose to be a soldier by 
appropriating the sword and part of the uniform of some 
kinsman, fresh from the field, and taking instant com- 
mand of a troop of young servants. 



308 LIFE OF'"^^^^. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

The love of war was in his Scotch blood. And he 
always kindled at any mention of Scotland or Scottish 
men. Once, in discussing with him the different charac- 
teristics of European soldiers, somebody said that, after 
all, the English soldier was the stoutest Europe had 
seen since Caesar's legionaries. 

*'I think the Scotch the best," the General quickly 
rejoined, with that slight toss of the head, with which he 
sometimes emphasized the expression of an opinion he 
was ready to do battle for. He was proud of his Scotch 
descent, tracing close kinship with the family from 
which sprang the historian, Robertson, Lord Brougham, 
Patrick Henry, and, I believe I may add, Mii. Glad- 
stone. A visit, which he was able to make to Scotland 
a few years after the close of our late war, was ever 
afterwards a subject he loved to talk about. The low- 
land country, as the home of his ancestors, and -its 
remains of strongholds, attesting the martial habits of 
their former possessors, had a peculiar charm for him; 
and it was only a year ago that, after an animated con- 
versation about these things, I heard him murmuring in 
a soft, clear voice: 

"Within the bounds of Annandale 

The gentle Johnstones ride ; 
They have been there a thousand years, 
A thousand more they'll bide." 

Not till many months afterwards did I learn where 
these lines came from. Walter Scott wrote them as a 
motto for one of the chapters of the ''Fair Maid of 
Perth, and, when I found them there, all of the Gen- 



reminiscencp:s of col. archer Anderson. 309 

eral's great love of Sir Walter was agreeably recalled. 
It was delightful to hear him describe the arrival of the 
first Waverley novels in his father's quiet country home. 
The family circle would quickly form around the blazing 
wood fire, one of the elder brothers would begin to read 
aloud the entrancing story, and the interruption of the 
summons to supper or bed was always met with a gen- 
eral murmur. It was touching to see the old soldier, in 
his 84th year, comparing favorite passages with a little 
girl of thirteeen, but lately introduced to Scott's magic 
world. Love of Sir Walter at once broke down all 
barriers between these representatives of the two 
extremes of life, and from that moment they were fast 
friends. 

The General's father and elder brothers were men of 
uncommon ability and culture, and the intellectual and 
moral training he received at home was no bad prepara- 
tion for a great career. In that circle, the *'best that 
had been said and done in the world" was often read 
aloud and discussed. It was there the General got his 
love for some of the great masterpieces of literature. 
Schliemann himself was not a greater enthusiast about 
Homer. The old soldier talked about the heroes of the 
Iliad, as if he had fought at their sides. Diomed was 
his favorite. 

It was the heroic fibre in him that was strung into 
tension at every contact with' greatness, in fiction or 
history. 

He had a definite image, in his mind's eye, of every 
soldier who had played a great part in the world, and 



3IO LIFE OF LWHii. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

he talked about each one, from Alexander to Napoleon, 
with criticism as discriminating, and feeling as deep as 
contemporaries would have called forth. His conception 
of the qualities necessary to form a soldier of the first 
rank was so exalted that, when he found one, he could 
not tolerate the idea that such greatness could be coupled 
with weakness or crime. Hence, he never forgave 
Macaulay for blackening Marlborough, or Lanfrey and 
the radical school for belittling Napoleon. 

There never was a soldier, perhaps, who delighted 
more in the habitual contemplation of the great examples 
of military conduct which fill the annals of war. And 
nature had so endowed him, in heart and soul and body, 
that he was fit to be moulded by such examples. 

We had been discussing Napoleon one day, ana 
something was said about the number of times the 
Emperor had been wounded. *'Let me show you," he 
said, **what Thiers says about the marks of wounds 
found on his body," and with that he read aloud Thiers' 
touching description of Napoleon's death in tones that 
cannot easily be forgotten. Tears were streaming 
down his face when he closed the book. 

It is almost unnecessary to say that his knowledge of 
military history was minute and profound. In his old 
age reading had become physically burdensome, and he 
did not care much for new books. But his mind easily 
reproduced all he had read in his younger days. I was 
trying to get him to look into some parts of Carlyle's 
**Frederick" without much success, and offered to read 
to him one of his battle pieces. ** Stop, "he said, "I 



RK-MINISCENCES OF COL. ARCHER ANDERSON. 3II 

have not read about that battle for thirty 3- cars, but I 
think I can show you exactly the position and move- 
ments of the armies." Then, suiting the action to the 
w^ord, he got dow^n on the floor and, taking books from 
the table, displayed all the evolutions of the Prussians 
at Leuthen. 

In his early years in the army be had been a great 
student. He had, after leaving West Point, read in the 
original most of the great Latin authors, and in transla- 
tions the principal Greek classics. With these he com- 
bined a great deal of history and, particularly^ military 
history. 

Pie was exceedingly fond of the older French memoirs, 
of which his library contained some fine copies. One 
visitor in the last two weeks of his life found him read- 
ing the memoirs of Sully, another, the life of Du 
Guesclin. Du Guesclin was one of his favorite heroes. 
How he loved to tell that story of the commander of a 
besieged fort, who would yield his sword only to Du 
Guesclin's dead body ! 

But all this ardor in the pursuit of knowledge was 
coupled with an equal love for out-door occupations, for 
riding and shooting and all martial exercises. Though 
of short stature, he had great muscular development and 
activity. 

The story used to be current at Centre ville in 1861, 
that he and Beauregard, returning to their quarters in a 
farm-house, had been seen to vault over the paling that 
surrounded it. He had that love of wielding weapons, 
which would have fitted him to lead men in battle, in the 



312 LIFE Oi^iEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

days when commanders of armies fought with their ov/n 
hands, and he had a specially tender feeling for generals 
whose foible was to dash foremost into the thickest 
of the fight. How often was this trait of Prince Eugene 
on his lips! 

His love of arms and armour was always very 
strikincr. As Sir Walter Scott's first excursion on 
reaching Rome was to the neighboring feudal castle of 
Bracciano, so the General's liveliest reminiscence of 
Paris was of the collections of the Musee d' Artillerie. 
And later, I remember the delight with which he 
showed a richly illustrated history of arms and armour, 
which he had picked up at some cost in New York. So 
his anecdotes of shooting and hunting in the Wild West 
were told with the zest of the keenest sportsm.an. 

His service in the old army had made him familiar 
with most parts of the United States. The long span 
of his life connected periods very far apart in the devel- 
opment of the country, and it was interesting to hear 
his descriptions of different stages of this progress. 
The story of the movement of his company from Fort 
Monroe to the theatre of the Black Hawk war and its 
return, with all the details of the route, was one of these. 
In coming back the company marched from the Ohio 
across Virginia to Richmond, the officers, of course, on 
foot like their men. On the last day's march, some 
gentlemen of the neighborhood went to meet the troops 
at a famous tavern, thirteen miles from Richmond, and 
invited Lieutenant Johnston to remain with them to 
dinner. He accepted their hospitality, but was obliged 



REMINISCENCES OF COL. ARCHER ANDERSON. 313 

to overtake his company, which was to embark the next 
morning at Rocketts, by a night march in a driving rain 
to Richmond. So ended in storm and mud the in- 
glorious Black Hawk campaign; but the General's 
account of his share in it gave a lively picture of the 
aspect of the country, the condition of the people, and 
the means of travel and transportation at that day. 

General Johnston had not the arts of popularity. His 
nature was too reserved to admit of that frank and ready 
speech, which wins immediate access to every heart. 
He gave his confidence slowly, and was not accustomed 
to disclose his inmost thoughts, except to those whom he 
counted as personal friends. These knew the warmth 
and depth of his affections, his tenderness, his love of 
children, his unostentatious benevolence, and above all 
the constancy and fidelity of his nature. And they 
loved him all the more, perhaps, for certain peculiarities 
of speech and temper, which sometimes gave offence; 
for these showed that the hero had points of contact and 
sympathy with ordinary humanity. There are char- 
acters so perfect as to produce around them an atmos- 
phere of coldness and constraint. General Johnston 
was not one of these. Though slow to form friendships, 
he was altogether hearty and human in his intercourse 
with men. He loved good cheer, he enjoyed a glass of 
wine, and his conversation at a dinner-table with con- 
genial companions was often fascinating and memorable. 
His speech was measured and never quite fluent; but 
the fitting word was always found, the thought was 
clear and its expression terse and striking. Upon any 



314 LIFE Qi^jEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

subject which had engaged his intellect and feelings he 
was an effective talker, and, as the good bishop said of 
Macaulay, it was generally safer to agree with him at 
once — you were pretty certain to have to do so in the 
end. 

But this, in truth, was only another aspect of those 
qualities which made him a soldier. A soldier must 
see one side very clearly, and believe in one course 
very firmly. There must not be much room in his 
mind for refinements or reservations. And so, natur- 
ally, it was the General's military talk which was the 
most charming. Whether on the march, or at the* 
rough camp table, or at some luxurious board in the 
piping times of peace, he could always be drawn out 
by a skilful question or two, into most abundant and 
instructive criticism and narrative of great campaigns. 

To the general public, his manner had in it some- 
thing that was austere, and sometimes abrupt. This 
did not impair his influence with soldiers. Even in 
this democratic country, citizen soldiers did not expect 
from their commanders the conciliatory manners of 
politicians. They divined' at once, under Gen. John- 
ston's martial bearing, the stout soldier and daring 
leader. They soon recognized his protecting care for 
their comfort, his forethought and justice, and were at 
once inspired with confidence in his powers of com- 
mand. There was about him an air of strength and 
daring, which promptly invigorated his followers. This 
was strikingly displayed at Dalton, Georgia, in Decem- 
ber, 1863. 



REMINISCENCES OF COL. ARCHER ANDERSON. 315 

The Army of Tennessee was demoralized by recent 
disaster at Missionary Ridge When Johnston assumed 
command, confidence and mihtary spirit instantly re- 
vived. And all this came about without any display, 
or boastful promises on the part of the commander. 
The army felt that a bold heart and penetrating mind 
would bring to bear upon its fortunes the highest mili- 
tary skill and the most patriotic devotion. 

If this was the effect he produced upon his own 
troops, the respect he at once inspired in the enemy's 
ranks was equally marked. Nothing is more striking 
than the uniform testimony of Gen. Sherman and all 
his officers, to Johnston's signal merits as a commander. 

And the same opinion has prevailed amongst the 
best foreign military critics. The estimate of Chesney, 
placing him by the side of Turenne, is well known. 
The Comte de Paris had an equally high admiration of 
him, which he gracefully manifested in his recent tour 
in this country, by making to Gen. Johnston, at his 
home in Washington, the only visit he paid, except to 
Gens. Sherman and Schofield. Gen. Johnston was -not 
at home; but he afterwards met the French Prince at 
Richmond and Philadelphia, and received from him 
marks of the greatest deference and respect. And the 
Count, who has shown the most soldierly and liberal 
spirit in recognizing the military merit of Confederates, 
as entitled to equal consideration with that of their late 
antagonists, has earned for himself the thanks of all 
Southern soldiers by the generous and sympathetic 
utterances which the death of Gen. Johnston drew from 



3l6 LIFE i^^EN. JOSEPH K. JOHNSTON. 



him. These were in keeping with the high admiration 
he showed for him in life. At a dinner given hy a 
distinguished Federal General* at which a number of 
famous Northern officers were present, the only toast 
the Comte de Paris gave was to Gen. Johnston — the 
chivalrous Frenchman, who had fought against him, 
making it a point, when thus surrounded by Northern 
officers, to propose the health of the old hero of the 
South. 

The strangers _rom other lands, who saw him then for 
the first time, were amazed to learn that he would soon 
complete his 84th year. There was surely a rare union 
in Gen. Johnston of physical and mental vigor. Never 
was healthy mind lodged in a healthier body. Though 
that body was riddled with bullets, no unsound spot was 
ever developed in it till the labor of four score years 
was done. 

During the war he sustained all sorts of fatigues and 
hardships as easil}^ as the youngest of his followers. He 
was, at all times, the very type of a hardy soldier; and 
the idea would often come into the minds of those about 
him that the men who, with the Roman short sword 
conquered the world, must have looked like him. It 
was this martial bearing that at once won the hearts of 
soldiers. It conve3'ed an instantaneous impression of 
his most marked characteristic — indomitable courage. 
Few men ever had such a look in battle. The flashing 
of his eye, and the movements of his body, were more 
potent commands than any spoken words. Never was 
warlike temper more visibly stamped on face, gesture 



REMINISCENCES OF COL. ARCHER ANDERSON. 3I7 

and bearing than in the person of this grand leader, in 
the crisis of action. To see him, then, was to receive 
a new impulse to battle. 

Such were some of the elements out of which that rare 
product — a man fit to lead armies — was formed. Only 
a few such men are born in a century. If, in 1870, 
France had possessed one such, there would have been 
defeat, perhaps, but no disgrace. No army would have 
been lost; every inch of ground would have been con- 
tested; and, before the siege of Paris could have been 
formed, new levies, rallying about a nucleus of veterans, 
would have reversed the balance of numerical superi- 
ority. The capital and the military honor of France 
would have been saved. 

For these reasons, then — even if affection and pride 
were dead in us — such a soldier should not lack endur- 
ing commemoration. The safety of the country can 
never be assured if each generation shall not produce 
one such hero to lead her armies in the day of peril. 

And to cherish the fame of the great and good com- 
mander is to transmit to posterity the high thoughts and 
feelings which in each age are needed to warm into life 
every latent germ of military virtue. 

Archer Anderson. 



3i8 LIFE ofgI^. 



JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 



T 



CHAPTER XXII. 

THE RICHMOND MEMORIAL MEETING. 

HE Johnston meeting held at the Chamber of 
Commerce yesterday evening, was thoroughly 
representative of all classes of Richmond's citizens. 

The meeting was called to order by Judge George 
L. Christian, on whose motion, Mayor J. T. Ellyson 
was elected chairman. 

Mayor Ellyson, on taking the chair, said he had 
called the meeting at the request of Lee Camp, Con 
federate Veterans, to take suitable action to secure the 
removal of the remains of Gen. Joseph E. Johnston to 
Richmond. He did not hesitate to comply with the 
request and issue' the call, for he felt that in so doing 
he was but carrying out, and indeed, anticipating the 
wishes of the* citizens of Richmond, who he knew would 
endorse any action of the meeting, looking to the end in 
view. 

On motion of Mr. W. L. White, Judge George L. 
Christian was elected secretary. 

It was moved and carried, that a committee on resolu- 
tions be appointed, and the Chair announced the 
following : Major Robert Stiles, Colonel W. H. Palmer, 
Colonel Alexander Archer, Judge E. C. Minor, and 
Mr. Joseph H. Thomas. 

BEAUTIFUL RESOLUTIONS REPORTED. 

The committee, after consultation, reported through 
Major Stiles the following: 



THE RIcfi^MOND MEMORIAL MEFJTING. 319 

Virginia mourn's the last of her great soldier trium- 
virate, Jackson, Lee, Johnston — all stainless, each one 
as good as great. 

Within a year after he drew aside the veil that hid 
the image of the God-like Lee, Johnston himself passed 
from us, and beyond that greater veil the three Christian 
heroes have entered upon immortal comradeship. Weep- 
ing Virginia, though Rachel-like, lamenting her 
children because they are not, may yet lift her bowed 
head with this proud reflection : Even in these degener- 
ate days have I borne peerless sons, and, while in some 
sense I must give them up, yet are they mine forever. 

More essentially, perhaps, than any other great 
American, Joseph E. Johnston was the soldier — the 
trained^ professional soldier. As such, he was less per- 
fectly in touch with the mass of the people, and in pro- 
portion to his merit less appreciated by them than were 
most of the other heroes of the war. The Christian 
civilization of to-day rightly yearns for peace, but 
wrongly refuses to estimate fairly the greatness that is 
born of the profession of arms alone. A quarter of a 
century ago, as the majestic figures of our great 
generals emerged from the smoke of battle, and moved 
out from the soldier life, from camp and march and 
field, into the unrom antic walks of our selfish, scheming 
business world, men marveled at them as anomalies, and 
demanded ** whence have mere soldiers these character- 
istics ; this purity and consecration, this majesty and 
strength?" Those of us who have to some degree 
lived, and loved, the life of the soldier make answer; 



320 LIFE OF^il^. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

* 'These men were cast in this mould; they are not 
anomalies, but the lofty yet normal outcome of a grand 
system of physical and mental* and moral training." 
What, then, is the training and what are the formative 
elements of this life? 

ESSENTIAL CHARACTER OF THE SOLDIER LIFE. 

We answer: The essential character of the soldier 
life is ^'Seryice" — its all pervading law is *'Duty." 
Its first lesson is Obedience unquestioning — its last 
lesson Command unquestioned. Its daily discipline 
Accountability unceasing — its final burden Respon- 
sibility tmmeasured. Its every-day experience Hard- 
ships, Perils, Crises unpai^alleled — its compensation 
Fixed Pay. Its inspiration Promotion from Above. 

Here is the mould. Does it not prefigure the man 
we mourn and honor to-night ? His purity, his loyalty, 
his directness, his robustness, his majestic simplicity, 
his devotion to duty, his heroism ? Yes ! God made 
him in body, mind and soul a youth capable of respond- 
ing to this noble training and absorbing these lofty 
influences; but they made him the man and the hero 
he was. 

Thus was he soldier-trained to a grreat character and 
a grand career, to a majestic manhood and a mighty 
life, but his spirit soared even higher, because he was 
also God-created^ high-souled and broad-minded. It is 
noteworth}^ how his soldier training and his soldier 
spirit entered into, inspiring or modifying, his almost 
every act and utterance, and yet how his personal eleva- 



THE RICHMOND MEMORIAL MEETING. 32 1 

tion and breadth bore him up, and away above and 
beyond the mere soldier. 

FOUGHT BRAVELY UNDER WHAT HE CONSIDERED 
INJUSTICE. 

Where will you find anything finer than his palliation 
of the failure of a gallant officer (afterwards prominent 
upon the Federal side) to espouse the cause of his native 
South, upon the ground, as he said, that his friend was 
essentially a soldier, and had failed to secure in our 
service the rank to which his worth, and his position, in 
the old army justly entitled him — all unconscious the 
while of the noble contrast which his own conduct 
presented in turning his back upon a higher position 
in the old service than any other Southern officer 
sacrificed, and never sulking, but fighting to the bitter 
end under what he considered injustice like to that 
which repelled his friend ? 

His mere intellectual pre-eminence does not even 
require distinct assertion. Not only does his career 
throughout bear witness to it, but it is, perhaps, not 
too much to say that by the general consensus of com- 
petent opinion in the United States, North and South, 
Joseph E. Johnston is ranked as at least the peer of any 
officer upon either side of the late war, not in intellect 
only^ but in all the learning and skill of his profession. 

He was even more than this. It is questionable 
whether there can be found, in all the annals of war 
and of defeat, a sublimer exhibition of imperturbable 
poise of soul and perfect command of the very utmost of 



322 LIFE OF llT|i^ i I I II E. JOHNSTON. 

one's supremest powers than is furnished by Johnston's 
great double act of soldiership and statesmanship in the 
battle of Bentonville, and the convention with Sherman. 
But not only did his comprehensive intelligence and 
his high-souled strength overlap and rise above the 
broad, high ideal even of the true soldier — if soldier 
only — but his heart and his affections w^ere so rich and 
so loving that even his lion-like masculinity could not 
banish from his intercourse with his family and his 
friends a tenderness that was absolutely womanly. 
Gen. Dabney Maury says he kissed him upon both 
cheeks and then upon his lips when parting with him 
for the last time. It was one of his peculiar habits to 
embrace and kiss men whom he specially loved and 
trusted. He was not only affectionate and tender — ''he 
of the lion heart and hammer hand" and body battle- 
scarred — but he was the most affectionate and the most 
tender of men. 

WE CRAVE THE NOBLE BODY. 

Let it be added, to complete the picture, and with de- 
vout gratitude to Almighty God, that he who, with such 
compelling will and such a mighty hand, controlled and 
led men, followed his Divine Master with the humility 
and the confiding trust of a little child ; therefore be it 

Resolved^ i. That in the life of Gen. Joseph Eggleston 
Johnston, Virginia recognizes, with paternal pride, the 
career of a great Christian soldier without fear and with- 
out reproach, and full of well-earned honors. 

2, That, in his death, she mourns the .loss of one of 
the most noble and the most loyal of all her heroic sons. 

3, That, so far as such final disposition of his remams 



THE RICHMOND MEMORIAL MEETING. 323 

can be harmonized with the wishes and plans of the 
General's family, the people of Richmond, and, we are 
confident, the people of Virginia as well, crave the noble 
body, scarred with ten honorable wounds, and ask that 
they be permitted to lay it reverently to rest here, in his 
native soil, at such place in or near the city of Rich- 
mond as may hereafter be determined upon. 

4, That the foregoing minute and resolutions be com- 
municated to the family of Gen. Johnston, accompanied 
by our reverent sympathies. 

MAJOR STILES'S REMARKS. 

Major Stiles, in speaking of the resolutions, said that 
Gen. Johnston was the grandest man he had ever known, 
in respect of personal friendly relations. He was, how- 
ever, so essentially a soldier, that he was not in touch 
with the people, and was not esteemed as other men 
were. 

The speaker believed that if he could communicate 
with the old hero, he would thank him for putting before 
the people the life of the soldier. Public sentiment, 
continued Major Stiles, does not do justice to the spldier. 
The whole force of modern society is given to the 
accumulation of wealth. The soldier never accumu- 
lates. It was contended that the time of the soldier had 
passed. This is not true. All civilization is born of the 
blood of the soldier, and founded on the bullet, and the 
sword. The Christian civilization is iron-bound, 
and will be until the millennium. The contrary idea 
was a false representation of the Christian religion. 
The speaker showed how Sir Philip Sidney, Havelock, 
Chinese Gordon, Jackson, Lee, and others were not 
anomalies, but the development of the soldier life, and 



324 LIFE OF gS^^^JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

drew a striking picture of Gen. Johnston — the soldierly 
type. 

INFINITE AND ABSOLUTE COURAGE. 

He was, Major Stiles said, the embodiment of infinite 
and absolute courage. There was as much courage 
and nobility in his small frame as could have been 
packed in that of a man of six feet six inches. The 
life of a soldier was, said Major Stiles, service. He 
was cut off from everything that others enjoy. It was 
a priesthood of consecration. He was separate from the 
people, from their aims, and from their ambitions, 
istanding way off on the frontier, protecting the State and 
the women and children. 

DUTY. 

As for duty, the soldier had put that word where it 
never was before, and he obeyed, because those above 
him had a right to command. There was, asserted the 
speaker, no more important lesson for the people to learn 
than that of obedience. The centurion had given the 
best analysis of obedience. 

Major Stiles then attested to the responsibilities of the 
military life, and showed how Gen. Johnston measured 
up to the full standard of all that combined to constitute 
the ideal soldier. 

NO POLITICIAN. 

The speaker's description of what difficulties he and 
others encountered in trying to make a politician of Gen. 
Johnston was very amusmg; and, in this connection, he 
told some anecdotes, at the expense of himself and 



THE RICHMOND MEMORIAL MEETING. 325 

friends, which illustrated Gen. Johnston's straightfor- 
wardness, that provoked bursts of merriment. 

Gen. Johnston, added Major Stiles, was one of the 
most charming conversationalists he had ever heard 
talk, and was the most affectionate and lovable man he 
had ever met. He had often kissed the speaker, and 
it was his habit, whenever he part,ed from a family, to 
kiss the younger members. Major Stiles's description 
of his last interview with Gen. Johnston was so pathetic 
as to draw tears from the eyes of all present. 

AN ELOQUENT AND TENDER TRIBUTE. 

Major Stiles spoke for half an hour, perhaps, and 
nothing short of a verbatim report of his remarks could 
convey anything like an adequate impression of his 
eloquence and tenderness in his reference to his old 
commander and friend. 

At the conclusion of Major Stiles's remarks, the reso- 
lutions were unanimously adopted. 

Capt. Louis Bosseiux spoke briefly regarding his old 
friend, after which the meeting adjourned. 



326 LIFE OF 7??!i|^ JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

REMINISCENCES OF GEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON, BY 
A NORTHERN SOLDIER. 

This story is credited to Gen. Joseph E. Johnston and 
to several officers who were musketry instructors in their 
younger days, and who held leading commands on 
different sides during our civil war. On getting into 
hot corners, when the enemy's balls were flying close 
around their heads, they would say: ** Disgusting! 
Really, now, less accuracy than in the old buck and 
ball period. It is too bad! Too bad! No improve- 
ment at all. Won't they ever learn to gauge distances? 
A shameless waste of good ammunition, that's what it is. 
Confounded carelessness!" 

With Grant, Gen. Sheridan- was the least fidgety of 
men under fire ; and as to Custer, he really seemed to 
like such abnormal conditions. It would be invidious 
to signal out any one on either side for coolness in 
action; nevertheless, the peculiar idiosyncracies of the 
late Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston were con- 
spicuous. He was noted for absolute indifference to 
lead. **You can't see things, gentlemen, in their 
proper light," Gen. Johnston would say to his staff, 
* 'unless we get much closer — quite close, in fact," and 
close to the line of fire he would go. It looked as if he 
never remembered that he had been hit, or that there 
was any risk to be run. 



REMINISCENCES OF A NORTHERN SOLDIER. 327 

It is said, that at the battle of Seven Pines, where he 
got his last wound, he remarked, after he had reeled in 
his saddle: **Quite extraordinary! It's nothing, gentle- 
men, I assure you; not worthy of comment. I think 
we ought to move up a little closer. If a surgeon is 
within call, and not too busy — at his convenience, per- 
fect convenience — he might as well look me over." If 
some one on his staff had not just then caught him, the 
General would have fallen from his horse; and, even 
then, he made a little deprecatory gesture, as if to say, 
It is a mere trifle — of no possible consequence. 

This anecdote is authentic, and shows how modest is 
true courage, and how it may have a ludicrous side to 
it. Some years after the war, at a family dinner, where 
there were present Gen. Joseph E. Johnston and a 
distinguished officer, in the regular service, who was 
bravery personified, the talk was about the Black Hawk 
war. 

**I think," said Gen. Johnston, in his quiet way, **an 
Irish private soldier was the most amusingly brave man 
I ever heard about. It seems, or I have been told, that 
there were six men surrounded in a swamp by eighty 
odd Indians. The soldiers were like rats in a trap, up 
to their knees in a swamp, the mud of such tenacious 
ooze that they couldn't move. During the first five 
minutes three of the men were wounded. It was cer- 
tain that in time some of the Indians would make their 
way in the rear of the soldiers, and shoot them in the 
back, because the men could not face about. There 
was this Irishman, and he said to the officer in charge: 



328 LIFE OF -^fci^^ JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

*Excusin' the libertee, sor, but there's a bloody mus- 
quiter on me nose, and the baste won't get lose of me. 
Would your honor kindly brush It off, bekase my arm 
is kind of ripped up wid a ball, and if I move it, belike 
my muskit would fall in the mud and be unsarviceable, 
and she's furnished with the last ca'tidge in the sack?' 
Every one of those six men thought they had but a few 
minutes more to live, when, just then, if I remember 
rightly, there happened to be a rescue.' 

**I have heard that story. Gen. Johnston," said the 
listening officer; **only you forget to mention one thing, 
and it was that you were the officer in charge of that 
party." 

Then Gen. Johnston looked quite confused, blushed 
and said: *^That may be, but I was frightened, sir. 
How do you know that I was not? I think I was in a 
perfect funk." 

During the evening the lady, at whose house they 
were dining, was discussing the merits of kerosene 
lamps, mineral oils having been about that time brought 
into use in the South. Gen. Johnston's opinion was 
asked about them. 

*'I am the most timid man in the world," said the 
General, ''and dreadfully afraid of a kerosene lamp. 
The other day a servant put one in my room. I was 
but half dressed, and I hurried out as fast as I could 
run. I knew it was going to burst. Then think of it! 
The very next night some kind of a patent kerosene 
lamp was sent me as a present, and the donor lit it, ex- 
Plaining to me the method of working it. Such was my 



REMINISCENCES OF A NORTHERN SOLDIER. 329 

nervousness that I never knew he was talking to me. 
Later, after somebody had extinguished the lamp, I tried 
to reason out to myself what a poltroon I was. We get 
hardened in time; but, I assure you, nothing would ever 
induce me to light or extinguish a kerosene lamp. I 
really envy you, madam, as possessing heroic traits, 
when you tell me you feel no alarm when in the pres- 
ence of a kerosene lamp. But I am, by nature, an 
arrant coward. An enemy, armed with kerosene lamps, 
would drive me off the field. I should be panic per- 
sonified." 

All this was said with such an air of conviction as to 
be highly amusing, when coming from the lips of as 
brave a man as ever lived. B. P. 



330 LIFE 0?^N^'. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 



APF^ENDIX A. 



The following is the form of the parole, executed 
under the Convention of Durham : 

Salisbury, N. C, May 2, 1865. 

In accordance with the terms of the military conven- 
tion, entered into on the 26th day of April, 1865, 
between Gen. Jos. E. Johnston, commanding the Con-- 
federate Army, and Major-Gen. W. T. Sherman, com- 
manding the United States Army, in North Carolina. 

Bradley T. Johnson, Brig. -Gen. C. S. A., has given 
his solemn obligation not to take up arms against the 
Government of the United States until properly released 
from this obligation, and is permitted to return to his 
home, not to be disturbed by the United States authorities, 
so long as he observe this obligation, and obey the laws 
in force where he may x*eside. 

Fr. Ewd. Wolcott, 

Major and J. A., U, S. A.y Special Commission, 
Bradley T. Johnson, 
Brig. -G €71. C. S. A.f Commanding, 

Headquarters \ 

Armies of the United States, > 

Washington, D. C, March 30, 1866. ) 

His Excellency, A. Johnson, 

President of the United States: 

Sir — I understand from Bradley T. Johnson, late of 
the Southern Army, and who was included in the 
paroled officers, under the convention between Gen. W. 
T. Sherman and Gen. J. E. Johnston, has been arrested 
in the Sta|e of Maryland on the charge of treason, for 
acts committed at the battle of Gettysburg, Pa., in 1863. 
I have noticed the same thing from the newspapers. 



APPENDIX A. 331 

There is nothing clearer in my mind, than that the 
terms of the paroles given by officers and soldiers who 
were arrayed against the authority of the General Gov- 
ernment of the United States, prior to their surrender, 
exempts them from trial or punishment for acts of legal 
warfare, so long as they observe the conditions of their 
paroles. 

Gen. Johnston was in Maryland by express authority 
from these headquarters. I would now ask, as a point 
of faith on the part of the government, that proper steps 
be taken to relieve B. T. Johnson from the obligations 
of the bonds which he has been forced to give in the 
State of Maryland. 

I have the honor to be, very respectfully. 
Your obedient servant, 

' U. S. Grant, Lt, General. 

The above was written by Gen. Grant, and delivered 
to Gen. Joseph E. Johnston for approval, on the com- 
plaint by the latter of the arrest in Baltimore of one of 
his subordinates. 

The above copy was taken and the original delivered 
by Hon. D. W. Voorhees, of Indiana, to Hon. Reverdy 
Johnson, of Maryland, who personally delivered it to 
Andrew Johnson. The statements in it were considered 
too broad and embarrassing to the Administration, which 
then contemplated embarking on criminal prosecutions, 
and the original letter was withdrawn from the files of 
the Executive Department and another substituted, merely 
asking for a nolle prosequi^ which was granted. 

But Grant's official statement, that the faith of the 
government was pledged to protect against all pros- 
ecution, for acts of legal war, all paroled officers and 
soldiers, was, at that time, considered of great weight 
and moment. 



332 LIFE OF^TP*^'. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

And the criminai prosecution was stayed. He inter- 
posed in the same way for the protection of Col. John 
S. Mosby, and during the whole of that trying time his 
assistance was never invoked by any one who had the 
right to it, without being liberally and without delay, 
extended. 

If the first convention at Durham's station was in- 
tended by Sherman to be executed in good faith, it was 
a wise, broad measure; if it was intended merely as a 
device to deceive Johnston, and did deceive him, the 
disgrace and dishonor does not rest on Johnston's brow. 



AF^PKNDIX B. 



Constitution of the United Constitution of the Confed- 
States of America.* erate States of America. 



We the People of the United 
States, in order to form a more 
perfect Union, establish Jus- 
tice, insure domestic Tranquil- 
ity, provide for the common 
defence, promote the general 
Welfare, and secure the Bles- 
sings of Liberty to ourselves 
and our Posterity, do ordain 
and establish this Constitu- 
tion for the United States of 

• America. 



We, the People of the Confed- 
erate States, each State acting 
in its sovereign and indepen- 
dent character, in order to 
form a permanent Federal 
Government, establish justice, 
insure domestic tranquility, 
and secure the blessings of 
liberty to ourselves and our 
posterity — invoking the favor 
and guidance of Almighty 
God — do ordain and establish 
this Constitution for the Con- 
federate States of America. 



ARTICLE L 

Section i. All legislative 
Powers herein granted shall be 
vested in a Congress of the Uni- 
ted States, which shall consist of 
a Senate and House of Repre- 
sentatives. 

Section 2. The House of Rep- 
resentatives shall be composed 
of Members chosen every second 
Year by the People of the several 
States, and the Electors in each 
State shall have the Qualifica- 
tions requisite for Electors of the 



ARTICLE I. 

Section i. All legislative 
powers herein delegated shall be 
vested in a Congress of the Co7i- 
yV^erate States, which shall con- 
sist of a Senate and House of 
Representatives. 

Section 2. The House of Rep- 
resentatives shall be composed 
of members chosen every second 
year by the people of the several 
States ; and the electors in each 
State shall be citizens of the Con- 
federate StateSy and have the 



* This is an exact copy of the original in punctuation, spelling, capitals, etc. 

333 



334 



LIFE OF 79^. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 



most numerous Branch of Jthe 
State Legislature. 



No Person shall be a Repre- 
sentative who shall not have 
attained to the Age of twenty- 
five Years, and been seven Years 
a Citizen of the United States, 
and who shall not, when elected, 
be an Inhabitant of that State in 
which he shall be chosen. 

Representatives and direct 
Taxes shall be apportioned 
among the several States which 
may be included within this 
Union, according to their respec- 
tive Numbers,* which shall be 
determined by adding to the 
whole Number of free Persons, 
including those bound to Service 
for a term of Years, and exclud- 
ing Indians not taxed, three- 
fifths of all other Persons. f The 
actual Enumeration shall be 
made within three Years after 
the first meeting of the Congress 
' of the United States, and within 
every subsequent Term of ten 
Years, in such Manner as they 
shall by Law direct. The Num- 
ber of Representatives shall not 
exceed one for every thirty 
Thousand, but each State shall 
have at Least one Representa- 
tive ; and until such enumera 
tion shall be made, the State of 
New Hampshire shall be entitled 



qualifications requisite for elec- 
tors of the most numerous 
branch of the State Legislature ; 
but no person of foreign birth, 
not a citizen of the Confederate 
States, shall be allowed to vote 
for any officer, civil or political, 
State or Federal. 

No person shall be a Repre- 
sentative who shall not have 
attained the age of twenty-five 
years, and be a citizen of the 
Confederate States, and who 
shall not, when elected, be an 
inhabitant of that State in which 
he shall be chosen. 

Representatives and direct tax- 
es shall be apportioned among 
the several States, which may be 
included within this Confeder- 
acy, according to their respective 
numbers, which shall be de- 
termined by adding to the whole 
number of free persons, includ- 
ing those bound to service for a 
term of years, and excluding 
Indians not taxed, three fifths of 
all slaves. The actual enumera- 
tion shall be made within three 
years after the first meeting of 
the Congress of the Confederate 
States, and within every subse- 
quent term of ten years, in such 
manner as they shall by law 
direct. The number of Repre- 
sentatives shall not exceed one 
for every ffty thousand, but 
each State shall have at least one 
Representative ; and until such 
enumeration shall be made, the 
State of South Carolina shall be 
entitled to choose six, the State 



* Under the census of i860 one representative is allowed for every 127,381 
persons. 

t "Other persons" refers to slaves. See Amendments, Art. XIV, Sections i and 2- 



APPENDIX B. 



335 



to chuse three, Massachusetts 
eight, Rhode-Island and Provi- 
dence Plantations one, Connect- 
icut five, New York six. New 
Jersey four, Pennsylvania eight, 
Delaware one, Maryland six, Vir- 
ginia ten, North Carolina five. 
South Carolina five, and Georgia 
three. 

When vacancies happen in the 
Representation from any State, 
the Executive Authority thereof 
shall issue Writs of Election to 
fill such Vacancies. 

The House of Representatives 
shall chuse their Speaker and 
other officers ; * and shall have 
the sole Power of Impeachment. 



Section 3. The Senate of 
the United States shall be com- 
posed of two Senators from each 
State, chosen by the Legislature 
thereof, for six Years ; and each 
Senator shall have one Vote. 



Immediately after they shall 
be assembled in Consequence of 
the first Election, they shall be 
divided as equally as may be 
into three Classes. The Seats 
of the Senators of the first Class 
shall be vacated at the Expira- 
tion of the second Year, of the 



of Georgia ten, the State of Ala- 
bama nine, the State of Florida 
two, the State of Mississippi 
seven, the State of Louisiana six, 
and the State of Texas six. 



When vacancies happen in the 
representation from any State, 
the Executive authority thereof 
shall issue writs of election to 
fill such vacancies. 

The House of Representatives 
shall choose their Speaker and 
other officers ; and shall have 
the sole power of impeachment, 
except that any judicial or other 
Federal officer, resident and act- 
ing solely zvithin the limits of 
any State, may be impeached by 
a vote of two thirds of both 
branches of the Legislature 
thereof. 

Section 3. The Senate of the 
Confederate States shall be com- 
posed of two Senators from each 
State, chosen for six years by the 
Legislature thereof, at the regu- 
lar session next immediately 
preceding the comme?icemetit of 
the term of service; and each 
Senator shall have one vote. 

Immediately after they shall 
be assembled, in consequence of 
the first election, they shall be 
divided as equally as may be 
into three classes. The seats of 
the Senators of the first class 
be vacated at the expiration of 
the second year ; of the second 



* The principal of these are the clerk, sergeant-at-arms, door-keeper, and 
postmaster. 



33^ 



LIFE OF TMI^ JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 



second Class at the Expiration 
of the fourth Year, and of the 
third class at the Expiration of 
the sixth Year, so that one-third 
may be chosen every second 
year ; and if Vacancies happen 
by Resignation, or otherwise, 
during the Recess of the Legis- 
lature of any State, the Execu- 
tive thereof may make tempo- 
rary Appointments until the 
next Meeting of the LegislaturcA 
which shall then fill such Vacan 
cies. 

No person shall be a Senatoi 
who shall not have attained to the 
Age of thirty Years, and been 
nine Years a Citizen of the Uni 
ted States, and who shall not 
when elected, be an Inhabitant 
of that State for which he shall 
be chosen. 

The Vice President of the Uni- 
ted States shall be President of 
the Senate, but shall have no 
Vote, unless they be equally 
divided. 

The Senate shall chuse their 
other Officers, and also a Presi- 
dent pro tempore, in the absence 
of the Vice President, or when 
he shall exercise the Office of 
President of the United States. 

The Senate shall have the sole 
Power to try all Impeachments. 
When sitting for that Purpose, 
they shall be on Oath .or Affirma- 
tion. When the President of the 
United States is tried, the Chief 
Justice shall preside: And no 
Person shall be convicted with- 
out the Concurrence of two- 
thirds of the Members present. 

Judgment in Cases of Impeach- 
ment shall not extend further 



class at the expiration of the 
fourth year; and of the third 
class at the expiration of the 
sixth year; so that one third 
may be chosen every second 
year; and if vacancies happen 
by resignation or otherwise, 
during the recess of the Legis- 
lature of any State, the Execu- 
tive thereof may make tempo- 
rary appointments until the next 
meeting of the Legislature, 
which shall then fill such vacan- 
cies. 

No person shall be a Senator 
who shall not have attained the 
age of thirty years, and be a 
'-Atizen of the Confederate States ; 
and who shall not, when elected, 
oe an inhabitant of the State for 
which he shall be chosen. 

The Vice-President of the Con- 
federate States shall be Presi- 
dent of the Senate, but shall 
have no vote unless they be 
equally divided. 

The Senate shall choose their 
other officers ; and also a Presi- 
dent pro tempore in the absence 
of the Vice-President, or when he 
shall exercise the office of Presi- 
dent of the Confederate States. 

The Senate shall have the sole 
power to try all impeachments. 
When sitting for that purpose, 
they shall be on oath or affirrrta- 
tion. When the President of the 
Confederate States is tried, the 
Chief-Justice shall preside ; and 
no person shall be convicted 
without the concurrence of two 
thirds of the members present. 

Judgment in cases of impeach- 
ment shall not extend further 



APPENDIX IJ. 



337 



than to removal from Office, and 
Disqualification to hold and 
enjoy any Office of Honour, 
Trust or Profit under the United 
States : but the Party convicted 
shall nevertheless be liable and 
subject to Indigtment, Trial, 
Judgment and Punishment, 
according to Law. 

Section 4. The Times, Places 
and Manner of holding Elections 
for Senators and Representa- 
tives, shall be prescribed in each 
State by the Legislature thereof: 
but the Congress may at any 
time by Law make or alter such 
Regulations, except as to the 
places of chusing Senators. 



The Congress shall assemble 
at least once in every Year, and 
such Meeting shall be on the 
first Monday in December, unless 
they shall by Law appoint a 
different Day. 

Section 5. Each House shall 
be the Judge of the Elections, 
Returns and Qualifications of its 
own Members, and a Majority of 
each shall constitute a Quorum 
to do Business ; but a smaller 
Number may adjourn from day 
to day, and may be authorized 
to compel the Attendance of 
absent Members, in such Man- 
ner, and under such Penalties as 
each House may provide. 

Each House may determine 
the Rules of its Proceedings, 
punish its Members for disor- 
derly Behaviour, and, v.^ith the 
Concurrence of two-thirds, ex- 
pel a Member. 



than to removal from office, and 
diqualification to hold and enjoy 
any office of honor, trust, or 
profit, under the Confederate 
States ; but the party convicted 
shall, nevertheless, be liable and 
subject to indictment, trial, judg- 
ment, and punishment according 
to law. 

Section 4. The times, place, 
and manner of holding elections 
for Senators and Representa- 
tives, shall be prescribed in each 
State by the Legislature thereof, 
subject to the provisions of this 
Constitutions ; but the Congress 
may, at any time, by law, make 
or alter such regulations, except 
as to the times and places of 
choosing Senators. 

The Congress shall assemble 
at least once in every year ; and 
such meeting shall be on the 
first Monday in December, unless 
they shall, by law, appoint a 
different day. 

Section 5, Each House shall 
be the judge of the elections, 
returns, and qualifications of its 
own members, and a majority of 
each shall constitute a quorum 
to do business ; but a smaller 
number may adjourn from day 
to day, and may be authorized 
to compel the attendance of 
absent members, in such man- 
ner and under such penalties as 
each house may provide. 

Each House may determine 
the rules of its proceedings, 
punish its members for disor- 
derly behavior, and, with the 
concurrence of two thirds of the 
whole number, expel a member. 



338 



LIFE OF ffllt^JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 



Each House shall keep a Jour- 
nal of its Proceedings, and from 
time to time publish the same, 
excepting such Parts as may in 
their Judgment require Secrecy ; 
and the Yeas and Nays of the 
Members of either House on any 
question shall, at the Desire of 
one-fifth of those Present, be 
entered on the Journal. 

Neither House, during the Ses- 
sion of Congress, shall, without 
the Consent of the other, ad- 
journ for more than three days, 
nor to any other Place than that 
in which the two Houses shall 
be sitting. 

Section 6. The Senators and 
Representatives shall receive a 
Compensation for their Services, 
to be ascertained by Law, and 
paid out of the Treasury of the 
United States. They shall in 
all Cases, except Treason, Felony 
and Breach of the Peace, be privi- 
leged from Arrest during their 
Attendance at the Session of 
their respective Houses, and in 
going to and returning from the 
same , and for any Speech or 
Debate in either House, they 
shall not be questioned in any 
other Place. 

No Senator or Representative 
shall, during the time for which 
he was elected, be appointed to 
any civil Office under the Author- 
ity of the United States, which 
shall have been created, or the 
Emoluments whereof shall have 
been increased during such time ; 
and no Person holding any Office 
under the United States, shall be 
a Member of either House during 
his Continuance in Office. 



Each House shall keep a jour- 
nal of its proceedings, and from 
time to time pnblish the same, 
excepting such parts as may in 
their judgment require secrecy; 
and the yeas and nays of the 
members of either House, on any 
question, shall, at the desire of 
one fifth of those present, be 
entered on the journal. 

Neither House, during the ses- 
sion of Congress, shall, without 
the consent of the other, ad- 
journ for more thaji three days, 
nor to any other place than that 
in which the two Houses shall 
be sitting. 

Section 6. The Senators and 
Representatives shall receive a 
compensation for their services, 
to be ascertained by law, and 
paid out of the Treasury of the 
Confederate States. They shall, 
in all cases, except treason, fel- 
ony, and breach of the peace, be 
privileged from arrest- during 
their attendance at the session 
of their respective Houses, and 
in going to and returning from 
the same ; and for any speech or 
debate in either House, they 
shall not be questioned in any 
other place. 

No Senator or Representative 
shall, during the time for which 
he was elected, be appointed to 
any civil office under the author- 
ity of the Confederate States, 
which shall have been created, 
or the emoluments whereof shall 
have been increased during such 
time ; and no person holding 
any office under the Confederate 
States shall be a member of 
either House during his continu- 



APPENDIX B. 



339 



Section 7. All Bills for raising 
Revenue shall originate in the 
House of Representatives ; but 
the Senate may propose or con- 
cur with Amendments as on 
other Bills. 

Every Bill which shall have 
passed the House of Representa- 
tives and the Senate, shall, be- 
fore it become a Law, be pre- 
sented to the President of the 
United States; If he approve he 
shall sign it, but if not he shall 
return it, with his Objections to 
that House in which it shall have 
originated, who shall enter the 
Objections at large on their Jour- 
nal, and proceed to reconsider it. 
If after such Reconsideration 
two-thirds of that House shall 
agree to pass the Bill, it shall be 
sent, together with the Objec- 
tions, to the other House, by 
which it shall likewise be recon- 
sidered, and if approved by two- 
thirds of that House, it.shall be- 
come a Law. But in all such 
Cases the Votes of Both Houses 
shall be determined by Yeas and 
Nays, and the Names of the Per- 
sons voting for and against the 
Bill shall be entered on the Jour- 
nal of each House respectively. 
If any Bill shall not be returned 
by the President within ten Days 
(Sundays excepted) after it shall 
have been presented to him, the 



ance in office. But Congress 
may, by law, grant to the princi- 
pal officer in each of the execu- 
tive departments a seat upon the 
floor of either House, with the 
privilege of disc2issing any meas- 
ures appertaining to his depart- 
ment. 

Section 7. All bills for raising 
the revenue shall originate in the 
House of Representatives ; but 
the Senate may propose or con- 
cur with amendments, as on 
other bills. 

Every bill which shall have 
passed both Houses, shall, before 
it becomes a law, be presented 
to the President of the Confed- 
erate States ; if he approve, he 
shall sign it ; but if not, he shall 
return it^ with his objections, to 
that House in which it shall have 
originated, who shall enter the 
objections at large on their jour- 
nal, and proceed to reconsider it. 
If, after such reconsideration, 
two thirds of that House shall 
agree to pass the bill, it shall be 
sent, together *with the objec- 
tions, to the other House, by 
which it shall likewise be recon- 
sidered, and, if approved by two 
thirds of that House, it shall be- 
come a law. But, in all such 
cases, the votes of both Houses 
shall be determined by yeas and 
nays, and the names of the per- 
sons voting for and against the 
bill shall be entered on the jour- 
nal of each House, respectively. 
If any bill shall not be returned 
by the President within ten days 
(Sundays excepted) after it shall 
have been presented to him, the 
same shall be a law, in like 



34^ 



LIFE OF 79 



JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 



Same shall be a law, in like 
Manner as if he had signed it, 
unless the Congress by their 
Adjournment prevent its Return, 
in which Case it shall not be a 
Law. 



Every Order, Resolution, or 
Vote, to which the Concurrence 
of the Senate and House of Rep- 
resentatives may be necessary 
(except on a question of Ad- 
journment) shall be presented to 
the President of the United 
States ; and before the Same 
shall take Effect, shall be ap- 
proved by him, or being disap- 
proved by him, shall be repassed 
by two-thirds of the Senate and 
House of Representatives, ac- 
cording to the Rules and Limita- 
tions prescribed in the Case of a 
Bill. 

Sections. The Congress shall 
have Power 

To lay and collect Taxes, Du- 
ties, Imposts' and Excises, to 
pay the Debts and provide for 
the common Defence and gen- 
eral Welfare of the United 
States; but all Duties, Imposts 
and Excises shall be uniform 
throughout the United States ; 



manner as if he had signed it, 
unless the Congress, by their 
adjournment, prevent its return ; 
in which case it shall not be a 
law. The Presideiitniay approve 
any appropriation and disapprove 
any other appropriation in the 
same bill. In such case he shall, 
in signing the bill, designate the 
appropriations disapproved ; and 
shall retur7i a copy of such ap- 
propriations, with his objectio7is, 
to the House in which the bill 
shall have origiiiated ; and the 
same proceedings shall then be 
had as in case of other bills dis- 
approved by the President. 

Every order, resolution, or 
vote, to which the concurrence 
of both Houses may be necessary 
(except on a question of adjourn- 
ment), shall be presented to the 
President of the Confederate 
States ; and, before the same 
shall take effect, shall be ap- 
proved by him ; or, being disap- 
proved, shall be repassed by two 
thirds of both Houses, according 
to the rules and limitations pre- 
scribed in case of a bill. 



Section S. the Congress shall 
have power — 

To lay and collect taxes, du- 
ties, imposts, and excises, for 
revejiue necessary to pay the 
debts, provide for the common 
defense, and carry on the Gov- 
ernment of the Co7ifederate 
States ; but no bounties shall be 
granted from the Treasury ; nor 
shall any duties or taxes 07i im- 
portations from foreign 7iatio7is 



APPENDIX B. 



341 



To borrow Money on the credit 
of the United States ; 

To regulate Commerce with 
foreign Nations, and among the 
several States, and with the In- 
dian Tribes ; 



To establish an uniform Rule 
of Naturalization, and uniform 
Laws on the subject of Bank- 
ruptcies throughout the United 
States ; 



To coin Money, regulate the 
Value thereof, and of foreign 
Coin, and fix the Standard of 
"Weights and Measures ; 

To provide for the Punishment 
of counterfeiting the Securities 
and current Coin of the United 
States ; 



be laid to promote or foster any 
branch of industry ; and all du- 
ties, imposts, and excises shall be 
uniform throughout the Confed- 
erate States : \ 

To borrow money on the credit 
of the Confedeate States : 

To regulate commerce with 
foreign nations, and among the 
several States, and with the In- 
dian tribes ; but neither this, nor 
any other clause contained in the 
Constitution, shall ever be con- 
strued to delegate the power to 
Congress to appropriate money 
for any internal improvement in- 
tended to facilitate commerce ; 
except for the purpose of furnish- 
ing lights, beacons, and buoys, 
and other aid to navigation ztpon 
the coasts, and the improvement 
of harbors and the removing of 
obstructions in river navigation, 
in all which cases, such duties 
shall be laid on the navigation 
facilitated thereby, as may be 
necessary to pay the costs and ex- 
penses thereof: 

To establish uniform laws of 
naturalization, and uniform laws 
on the subject of bankruptcies, 
throughout the Confederate 
States ; but no law of Congress 
shall discharge any debt co7i- 
tracted before the passage of the 
sam.e : 

To coin money, regulate the 
value thereof, and of foreign 
coin, and fix the standard of 
weights and measures : 

To provide for the punishment 
of counterfeiting the securities 
and current coin of the Confed- 
erate States : 



342 



LIFE Of'TJ^W^ JOSEPH E. 



JOHNSTON. 



To establish Post Offices and 
post Roads ; 



To promote the progress of 
Science and useful Arts, by se- 
curing for limited Times to 
Authors and Inventors the ex- 
clusive Right to their respective 
Writings and Discoveries ; 

To constitute Tribunals in- 
ferior to the supreme Court ; 

To define and punish Piracies 
and Felonies committed on the 
high Seas, and Offences against 
the Law of Nations ; 

To declare War, grant Letters 
of Marque and Reprisal, and 
make Rules concerning Captures 
on Land and Water ; 

To raise and support Armies, 
but no Appropriation of Money 
to that Use shall be for a longer 
Term than two Years ; 

To provide and maintain a 
Navy ; 

To make Rules for the Gov- 
ernment and Regulation of the 
land and naval Forces ; 

To provide for calling forth 
the Militia to execute the Laws 
of the Union, suppress Insurrec- 
tions and repel Invasions ; 

To provide for organizing, 
arming, and disciplining, the 
Militia, and for governing such 
Part of them as may be em- 
ployed in the Service of the 
United States, reserving to the 
States respectively, the Appoint- 
ment of the Officers, and the 



To establish post-offices and 
post routes ; but the expenses of 
the Post-Office Department, after 
the first day of 3 f arch, i7i the 
year of our Lord eighteen hu7i- 
dred and sixty-three, shall be 
paid out of its own rcveitue : 

To promote the progress of 
science and ' useful arts, by se- 
curing for limited times to 
authors and inventors the exclu- 
sive right to their respective 
writings and discoveries : 

To constitute tribunals inferior 
to the Supreme Court : 

To define and punish piracies 
and felonies committed on the 
high-seas, and offenses against 
the law of nations : 

To declare war, grant letters 
of marque and reprisal, and 
make rules concerning captures 
on land and on water : 

To raise and support armies, 
but no appropriation of money 
to that use shall be for a longer 
term than two years : 

To provide and maintain a 
navy : 

To make rules for the govern- 
ment and regulation of the land 
and naval forces : 

To provide for calling forth 
the militia to execute the laws 
of the Confederate States, sup- 
press insurrections, and repel 
invasions : 

To provide for organizing, 
arming, and disciplining the 
militia, and for governing such 
part of them as the Confederate 
States, reserving to the States, 
respectively, the appointment of 
the officers, and the authority of 
training the militia according to 



APPENDIX B, 



343 



Authority of training the Militia 
according to the Discipline pre- 
scribed by Congress ; 

To exercise exclusive Legisla" 
tion in all Cases whatsoever, 
over such District (not exceeding 
ten Miles square) as may, by 
Cession of particular States, and 
the Acceptance of Congress, be- 
come the Seat of the Govern- 
ment of the United States, and 
to exercise like Authority over 
all Places purchased by the Con- 
sent of the Legislature of the 
State in which the Same shall be, 
for the Erection of Forts, Maga- 
zines, Arsenals, Dock-Yards, 
and other needful Buildings ; — 
And 

To make all Laws which shall 
be necessary and proper for car- 
rying into Execution the forego- 
ing Powers, and all other Powers 
vested by this Constitution in 
the Government of the United 
States, or in any Department or 
Officer thereof. 

Section 9. The Migration or 
Importation of such Persons as 
any of the States now existing 
shall think proper to admit, 
shall not be prohibited by the 
Congress prior to the Year one 
thousand eight hundred and 
eight, but a Tax or Duty may be 
imposed on such Importation, 
not exceeding ten dollars for 
each Person. 



The Privilege of the Writ of 
Habeas Corpus shall not be sus- 
pended, unless when in Cases of 



the discipline prescribed by 
Congress ; 

To exercise exclusive legisla- 
tion in all cases whatsoever, over 
such district (not exceeding ten 
miles square) as may, by cession 
of one or more States, and the 
acceptance of Congress, become 
the seat of the Government of 
the Confederate States, and to 
exercise like authority over all 
places purchased by the consent 
of the Legislature of the State 
in which the same shall be, for 
the erection of forts, magazines, 
arsenals, dock-yards, and other 
needful buildings ; and 

To make all laws which shall 
be necessary and proper for car- 
rying into execution the forego- 
ing powers, and all other powers 
vested by this Constitution in 
the Government of the Con- 
federate States, or in any depart- 
ment or officer thereof. 

Section 9. The importation of 
negroes of the Africa^i race, 
front any foreign country other 
than the slave-holding States or 
Territories of the United States 
of America, is hereby forbiddefi ; 
and Congress is required to pass 
such laws as shall effectually pre- 
vent the same. 

Congress shall also have power 
to prohibit the introduction of 
slaves from any State not a mem- 
ber of, or Territory not belong- 
ing to, this Confederacy. 

The privilege of the writ of 
habeas corpus shall not be sus- 
pended, unless when, in case of 



LIFE OF 



JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 



Rebellion or '.nvasion the public 
Safety may require it. 

No Bill of Attainder or ex 
post facto Law shall be passed. 



No Capitation, or other" direct, 
Tax shall be laid, unless in Pro- 
portion to the Census or Enu- 
meration herein before directed 
to be taken. 

No Tax or Duty shall be laid 
on Articles exported from any 
State. 

No Preference shall be given 
by any Regulation of Commerce 
or Revenue to the Ports of one 
State over those of another ; nor 
shall Vessels bound to, or from, 
one State, be obliged to enter, 
clear,, or pay Duties in another. 

No Money shall be drawn from 
the Treasury, but in Conse- 
quence of Appropriations made 
by Law ; and a regular State- 
ment and Account of the Re- 
ceipts and Expenditures of all 
public Money shall be published 
from time to time. 



rebellion or invasion, the public 
safety may require it. 

No bill of attainder, ex post 
facto 1^', or laiv denying or im- 
pairing the right of property in 
negro slaves shall be passed. 

No capitation or other direct 
tax shall be laid, unless in pro- 
portion to the census or enu- 
meration hereinbefore directed 
to be taken. 

No tax or duty shall be laid on 
articles exported from any St^te 
except by a vote of two thirds of 
both Honses. 

No preference shall be given 
by any regulation of commerce 
or revenue to the ports of one 
State over those of another. 



No money shall be drawn from 
the Treasury, but in consequence 
of appropriations made by law ; 
and a regular statement and ac- 
count of the receipts and expen- 
ditures of all public money shall 
be published from time to time. 

Congress shall appropriate no 
money from the Treasury, ex- 
cept by a vote of two thirds of 
both Houses, taken by yeas and 
nays, unless it be asked and esti- 
mated for by some one of the 
heads of departments, and sub- 
mitted to Congress by the Presi- 
dent; or for the purpose of 
paying its own expenses and con- 
tingencies ; or for the payment 
of claims agaijist the Confederate 
States, the justice of luhich shall 
have been judicially declared by 
a tribunal for the investigation 



APPENDIX B. 



345 



No Title of Nobility shall be 
granted by the United States ; 
And no Person holding any 
Office of Profit or Trust under 
them, shall, without the Consent 
of the Congress, accept of any 
present, Emolument, Office, or 
Title, of any kind whatever, 
from any King, Prince, or for- 
eign State. 



of claims against the Govern- 
ment^ which it is hereby made 
the duty of Congress to establish. 

All bills appropriating fnoney 
shall specify, in Federal cur- 
-^ency, the exact amoimt of each 
appropriation, and the purposes 
for which it is made ; and Con- 
gress shall grant no extra com- 
pensation to any public contractor, 
officer, agent, or servant, after 
such contract shall have been 
made or such serice rendered. 

No title of nobility shall be 
granted by the Confederate 
States ; and no person holding 
any office of profit or trust under 
them shall, without the consent 
of the Congress, accept of any 
present, emolument, office, or 
title of any kind whatever, from 
any king, prince, or foreign 
state. 

Congress shall make no law 
respecting an establishment of 
religion, or prohibiting the free 
exercise thereof; or abridging 
the freedom of speech, or of the 
press ; or the right of the people 
peaceably to assemble and peti- 
tion the Government for a re- 
dress of grievances. 

A well-regulated militia being 
.necessary to the security of a 
free state, the right of the peo 
pie to keep and bear arms shall 
not be infringed. 

No soldier shall, in time of 
peace, be quartered in any house 
without the consent of the owner; 
nor in time of war, but in a man- 
ner to be prescribed by law 

The right of the people to be 
secure in their persons, houses, 
papers, and effects, against un- 



34^ LIFE OF G*H^ JOSEPH E.JOHNSTON. 



reasonable searches and seiz- 
ures, shall not be violated ; and 
no war^'ants shall issue but upon 
probable cause, supported by 
oath or affirmation, and particu- 
larly describing the place to be 
searched, and the persons or 
things to be seized. 

No person shall be held to 
answer for a capital or otherwise 
infamous crime, unless on a pre- 
sentment or indictment of a 
grand jury, except in cases aris- 
ing in the land or naval forces, 
or in the militia, when in actual 
service in time of war or public 
danger ; nor shall any person be 
subject, for the same offense, to 
be twice put in jeopardy of life 
or limb; nor be compelled, in 
any criminal case, to be a wit- 
ness against himself; nor be 
deprived of life, liberty, or prop- 
erty, without due process of law ; 
nor shall private property be 
taken for public use without just 
compensation. 

In all criminal prosecutions, 
the accused shall enjoy the right 
to a speedy and public trial, by 
an impartial jury of the State 
and district wherein the crime 
shall have been committed, 
which district shall have been 
previously ascertained by law, 
and to be informed of the nature 
and cause of the accusation ; to 
be confronted with the witnesses 
against him ; to have compul- 
sory process for obtaining wit- 
nesses in his favor ; and to have 
the assistance of counsel for his 
defense. 

In suits at common law, where 
the value in controversy shall 



APPENDIX B. 



347 



Section io. No State shall 
enter into any Treaty, Alliance, 
or Confederation ; grant Letters 
of Marque and Reprisal ; coin 
Money ; emit Bills of Credit ; 
make any Thing but gold and 
silver Coin a Tender in Payment 
of Debts; pass any Bill of At- 
tainder, ex post facto Law, or 
Law impairing the Obligation of 
Contracts, or grant any Title of 
Nobility. 

No State shall, without tne 
consent of the Congress, lay any 
Imposts or Duties on Imports or 
Exports, except what may be 
absolutely necessary for ex- 
ecuting its inspection Laws ; and 
the net Produce of all Duties 
and Imposts, laid by any State 
on Imports or Exports, shall be 
for the Use of the Treasury of 
the United States ; and all such 
Laws shall be subject to the Re- 
vision and Controul of the Con- 
gress. 

No State shall, without the 
Consent of Congress, lay any 
Duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, 
or Ships of War in time of Peace, 



exceed twenty dollars, the right 
of trial by jury shall be pre- 
served ; and no fact so tried by a 
jury shall be otherwise re-exam- 
ined in any court of the Con- 
fedefacy, than according to the 
rules of the common law. 

Excessive bail shall not be re- 
quired, nor excessive fines im- 
posed, nor cruel and unusual 
punishment inflicted. 

Every law, or resolution hav- 
ing the force of law, shall relate 
to but ofie subject, and that shall 
be expressed in the title. 

Section io. No State shall 
enter into any treaty, alliance, 
or confederation; grant letters 
of marque and reprisal ; coin 
money ; make anything but gold 
and silver coin a tender in pay- 
ment of debts; pass any bill of- 
attainder, or ex post facto law, 
or law impairing the obligation of 
contracts, or grant any title of 
nobility. 

No State shall, without the 
consent of the Congress, lay any 
imposts or duties on imports or 
exports, except what may be 
absolutely necessary for execu- 
ting its inspection laws ; and the 
net produce of all duties and 
imposts, laid by any State on 
imports or exports, shall be for 
the use of the Treasury of the 
Confederate States ; and all such 
laws shall be subject to the revi- 
sion and control of Congress. 

No State shall, without the 
consent of Congress, lay any 
duty on tonnage, except on sea- 
going vessels for the improve- 



34S 



LIFE OF 



JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON, 



enter into any Agreement or 
Compact with another State, 
or with a foreign Power, or en- 
gage in War, unless actually 
invaded, or in such imminent 
Danger as will not admit of 
Delay. 



ARTICLE II. 
Section i. The executive 
Power shall be vested in a Presi- 
dent of the United States of 
America. He shall hold his 
Office during the Term of four 
Years, and, together with the 
Vice President, chosen for the 
same Term, be elected, as fol- 
lows : 

Each State shall appoint, in 
such Manner as the Legislature 
thereof may direct, a Number of 
Electors, equal to the whole 
Number of Senators and Repre- 
sentatives to which the State 
may be entitled in the Congress : 
but no Senator or Representa- 
tive, or Person holding an Office 
of Trust or Profit under the 
United States, shall be appointed 
an Elector. 



ment of its rivers and harbors 
navigated by the said vessels; 
but si^ch duties shall not conflict 
with any treaties of the Con- 
federate States with foreign na- 
tions. And any surplus revenue 
thus derived shall, after making 
such improvement, be paid into 
the common Treasury ; nor shall 
any State keep troops or ships 
of war in time of peace, enter 
into any agreement or compact 
with another State, or with a 
foreign power, or engage in war 
unless actually invaded, or in 
such imminent danger as will 
not admit of delay. But when 
any river divides or flows through 
two or more States, they tnay 
enter into compacts with each 
other to improve the navigation 
thereof. 

ARTICLE II. 

Section i. The Executive 
power shall be vested in a Presi- 
dent of the Confederate States 
of America. He and the Vice- 
Preside7it shall hold their offices 
for the term of six years ; but 
the Presidettt shall not be re- 
eligible. The President and the 
Vice-President shall be elected 
as follows : 

Each State shall appoint, in 
such manner as the Legislature 
thereof may direct, a number of 
electors, equal to the whole 
number of Senators and Repre- 
sentatives to which the State 
may be entitled in the Congress ; 
but no Senator or Representa- 
tative, or person holding an 
office of trust or profit under the 
Confederate States, shall be ap- 
pointed an elector. 



APPENDIX B. 



349 



*The Electors shall meet in 
their respective States, and vote 
by Ballot for two Persons, of 
whom one at least shall not be 
an Inhabitant of the same State 
with themselves. And they 
shall make a List of all the Per- 
sons voted for, and of the Num- 
ber of Votes for each ; which 
List they shall sign and certify, 
and transmit sealed to the Seat 
of the Government of the United 
States, directed to the President 
of the Senate. The President of 
the Senate shall, in the Presence 
of the Senate and House of 
Representatives, open all the 
Certificates, and the Votes shall 
then be counted. The Person 
having the greatest Number of 
Votes shall be the President, if 
such Number be a Majority of 
the whole Number of Electors 
appointed ; and if there be more 
than one who have such Ma- 
jority and have an equal Num- 
ber of Votes, then the House of 
Representatives shall immedi- 
ately chuse by Ballot one of them 
for President ; and if no Person 
have a Majority, then from the 
five highest on the List the said 
House shall in like Manner chuse 
the President. But in chusing 
the President, the Votes shall be 
taken by States, the Representa- 
tion from each State having one 
Vote ; a Quorum for this Pur- 
pose shall consist of a Member 
or Members from two-thirds of 
the States, and a Majority of all 
the States shall be necessary to 
a Choice. In every Case, after 



The electors shall meet in 
their respective States and vote 
by ballot for President and Vice- 
President, one of whom, at least, 
shall not be an inhabitant of the 
same State with themselves ; 
they shall name in their ballots 
the person voted for as Presi- 
dent, and in distinct ballots the 
person voted for as Vice-Presi- 
dent, and they shall make dis- 
tinct lists of all persons voted 
for as President, and all persons 
voted for as Vice-President, and 
of the number of votes for each, 
which list they shall sign and 
certify, and transmit sealed to 
the seat of the Government of 
the Confederate States, directed 
to the President of the Senate. 
The President of the Senate 
shall, in the presence of the 
Senate and House of Represen- 
tatives, open all the certificates, 
and the votes shall then be 
counted. The person having the 
greatest number of votes for 
President shall be the President, 
if such number be a majority of 
the whole number of electors 
appointed ; and if no person 
have such a majority, then from 
the persons having the highest 
numbers not exceeding three on 
the list of those voted for as 
President, the House of Repre- 
sentatives shall choose immedi- 
ately, by ballot, the President. 
But in choosing the President, 
the votes shall be taken by 
States, the representation from 
each State having one vote ; a 
quorum for this purpose shall 



♦Superseded by the twelfth amendment. 



350 



LIFE OF 



4^EN. 



JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 



the Choice of the President, the 
Person having the greatest Num- 
ber of Votes of the Electors 
shall be the Vice-President. But 
if there should remain two or 
more who have equal Votes, the 
Senate shall chuse from them 
by Ballot the Vice-President. 



The Congress may determine 
the Time of chusing the Electors, 
and the Day on which they shall 
give their Votes ; which Day 
shall be the same throughout 
the United States. 

No Person except a natural 
born Citizen, or a Citizen of the 
United States, at the time of the 
Adoption of this Constitution, 
shall be eligible to the Office of 



consist of a member or members 
from two-thirds of the States, 
and a majority of all the States 
shall be necessary to a choice. 
And if the House of Represen- 
tatives shall not choose a Presi- 
dent whenever the right of 
choice shall devolve upon them, 
before the fourth day of March 
next following, then the Vice- 
President shall act as President, 
as in the case of the death or 
other constitutional disability of 
the President. 

The person having the greatest 
number of votes as Vice-Presi- 
dent, shall be the Vice-President, 
if such number be a majority of 
the whole number of electors 
appointed ; and if no person 
have a majority, then from the 
two highest numbers on the list 
the Senate shall choose the Vice- 
President. A quorum for the 
purpose shall consist of two- 
thirds of the whole number of 
Senators, and a majority of the 
whole number shall be neces- 
sary to a choice. 

But no person constitutionally 
ineligible to the office of Presi- 
dent shall be eligible to that of 
Vice-President of the Confed- 
erate States. 

The Congress may determine 
the time of choosing the electors, 
and the day on which they shall 
give their votes ; which day shall 
be the same throughout the Co7i- 
federate States. 

No person except a natural 
born citizen of the Confederate 
States, or a citizen thereof at the 
time of the adoption of this Con- 
stitution, or a citizen thereoj 



APPENDIX B. 



351 



President ; neither shall any 
Person be eligible to that Office 
who shall not have attained to 
the Age of thirty-five Years, and 
been fourteen Years a Resident 
within the United States. 



In Case of the Removal of the 
President from Office, or of his 
Death, Resignation, or Inability 
to discharge the Powers and 
Duties of the said office, the 
same shall devolve on the Vice 
President, and the Congress 
may by Law provide for the 
Case of Removal, Death, Resign- 
ation, or Inability, both of the 
President and Vice President, 
declaring what Officer shall then 
act as President, and such Officer 
shall act accordingly, until the 
Disability be removed, or a 
President shall be elected. 

The President shall, at stated 
Times, receive for his Services, 
a Compensation, which shall 
neither be encreased nor dimin- 
ished during the Period for which 
he shall have been elected, and 
he shall not receive within that 
Period any other Emolument 
from the United States, or any 
of them. 

Before he enter on the Execu- 
tion of his Office, he shall take 
the following Oath or Affirma- 
tion : 

*T do solemnly swear (or 
"affirm) that I will faithfully exe- 
"cute the Office of President of 
"the United States, and will to 



born in the United States prior to 
the 20th of December, 1S60, shall 
be eligible to the office of Presi- 
dent ; neither shall any person 
be eligible to that office who 
shall not have attained the age of 
thirty-five years, and been four- 
teen years a resident within the 
tiniits of the Confederate States, 
as they may exist at the time of 
his election. 

In case of the removal of the 
President from office, or of his 
death, resignation, or inability 
to discharge the powers and du- 
ties of the said office, the same 
shall devolve on the Vice-Presi- 
dent : and the Congress may, 
by law, provide for the case of 
removal, death, resignation, or 
inability, both of the President 
and Vice-President, declaring 
what officer shall then act as 
President ; and such officer shall 
act accordingly, until the disa- 
bility be removed or a President 
shall be elected. 

The President shall, at stated 
times, receive for his services 
a compensation, which shall 
neither be increased nor dimin- 
ished during the period for which 
he shall have been elected • and 
he shall not receive within that 
period any other emolument 
from the Confederate States, or 
any of them. 

Before he enters on the execu- 
tion of his office, he shall take 
the following oath or affirmation : 

'T do solemnly swear (or 
affirm) that I will faithfully exe- 
cute the office of President of 
the Confederate States of Amer- 



352 



LIFE OF TTlSH^ JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 



"the best of my Ability, pre- 
"serve, protect and defend the 
"Constitution of the United 
"States." 

Section 2. The President shall 
be Commander in Chief of the 
Army and Navy of the United 
States, and of the Militia of the 
several States, when called into 
the actual Service of the United 
States ; he may require the 
Opinion, in writing, of the prin- 
cipal Officer in each of the ex- 
ecutive Departments, upon any 
Subject relating to the Duties of 
their respective Offices, and he 
shall have Power to grant Re- 
prieves and Pardons for Offences 
against the United States, exceot 
in Cases of Impeachment. 

He shall have Power, by and 
with the Advice and Consent of 
the Senate, to make Treaties, 
provided two-thirds of the Sena- 
tors present concur ; and he 
shall nominate, and by and with 
the Advice and Consent of the 
Senate, shall appoint Ambassa- 
dors, other public Ministers and 
Consuls, Judges of the supreme 
Court, and all other Officers of 
the United States, whose Ap- 
pointments are not herein other- 
wise provided for, and which 
shall be established by Law ; 
but the Congress may by Law 
vest the Appointment of such in- 
Terior Officers, as they think 
proper, in the President alone, 
in the Courts of Law, or in the 
Heads of Departments. 



tea, and will to the best of my 
ability, preserve, protect, and 
defend.the Constitution thereof.'' 

Section 2. The President shall 
be Commander-in-Chief of the 
Army any Navy of the Co}i- 
feaerate States, and of the mili- 
tia of the several States, when 
called into the actual service of 
the Cotifederate States ; he may 
require the opinion, in writing, 
of the principal officer in each of 
the executive departments, upon 
any subject relating to the du- 
ties of their respective offices, and 
he shall have power to grant re- 
prieves and pardons for offenses 
against the Coiifcderaey, except 
in cases of impeachment. 

He shall have power, by and 
with the advice and consent of 
the Senate, to make treaties, 
provided two thirds of the Sena- 
tors present concur ; and he shall 
nominate, and by and with the 
advice and consent of the Senate 
shall appoint ambassadors, other 
public ministers and consuls, 
Judges of the Supreme Court 
and all other officers of the Coti- 
federate States, whose appoint- 
ments are not herein otherwise 
provided for, and which shall be 
established by law ; but the Con- 
gress may by law vest the ap- 
pointment of such inferior offi- 
cers, as they think proper, m the 
President alone, in the courts of 
law, or in the heads of depart- 
ments. 

The principal officer in each of 
the executive departments, and 
all persons co?inected with the 
diplomatic service, viay be re- 



APPENDIX B. 



353 



The President shall have 
Power to fill up all Vacancies 
that may happen during the Re- 
cess of the Senate, by granting 
Commissions which shall expire 
at the End of their next Session. 



Section 3. He shall from time 
to time give to the Congress In- 
formation of the State of the 
Union, and recommend to their 
Consideration such Measures as 
he shall judge necessary and ex- 
pedient ; he may, on extraor- 
dinary Occasions, convene both 
Houses, or either of them, and 
in Case of Disagreement between 
them, with Respect to the time 
of Adjournment, he may adjourn 
them to such Time as he shall 
think proper ; he shall receive 
Ambassadors and other public 
Ministers ; he shall take Care 
that the Laws be faithfully exe- 
cuted, and shall Commission all 
the officers of the United States. 

Section 4. The President, 
Vice President and all civil Offi- 



tnovedfrom office at the pleasure 
of the President. A II other civil 
officers of the executive depart- 
ment may be removed at any time 
by the President^ or other ap- 
pointing power, when their ser- 
vices are unriecessary, or for dis- 
honesty, incapacity , inefficiency, 
misconduct, or neglect of duty ; 
and, when so removed, the re- 
moval shall be reported to the 
Senate, together with the reasons 
therefor. 

The President shall have 
power to fill up all vacancies 
that may happen during the re- 
cess of the Senate, by granting 
commissions which shall expire 
at the end of their next session. 
But no person rejected by the 
Senate shall be reappointed to the 
same office during tlieir ensuing 
recess. 

Section 3. The President ^'^■qW 
from time to time give to the 
Congress information of the 
state of the Confederacy, and 
recommend to their considera- 
tion such measures as he shall 
judge necessary and expedient ; 
he may on extraordinary occa- 
sions convene both Houses, or 
either of them ; and in case of 
disagreement between them, 
with respect to the time of ad- 
journment, he may adjourn them 
to such time as he shall think 
proper ; he shall receive ambas- 
sadors and other public min- 
isters ; he shall take care that 
the laws be faithfully executed, 
and shall commission all the 
officers of the Co7ifederateS\.2i\.QS. 

Section 4, The President, 
Vice-President, and all civil offi- 



!54 



LIFE OF 



^EN. 



JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 



cers of the United States, shall 
be removed from Office on Im- 
peachment' for, and Conviction 
of, Treason, Bribery, or other 
high Crimes and Misdemeanors. 



cers of the Confederate States, 
shall be removed from office on 
impeachment for and conviction 
of treason, bribery, or other 
high crimes and misdemeanors. 



ARTICLE III. 

Section i. The Judicial Power 
of the United States, shall be 
vested in one supreme Court, 
and in such inferior Courts as 
the Congress may from time to 
time ordain and establish. The 
Judges, both of the supreme and 
inferior Courts, shall hold their 
Offices during good Behavior, 
and shall, at stated times, re- 
ceive for their Services, a Com- 
pensation which shall not be 
diminished during their Con- 
tinuance in Office. 

Section 2.* The judicial Power 
shall extend to all Cases, in Law 
and Equity, arising under this 
Constitution, the Laws of the 
United States, and Treaties 
made, or which shall be made, 
under their Authority ; — to all 
Cases affecting Ambassadors, 
other public Ministers and Con- 
suls ; — to all Cases of admiralty 
and maritime Jurisdiction ; — to 
Controversies to which the 
United States shall be a Party ; 
to Controversies between two or 
more States ; — between a State 
and Citizens of another State ; — 
between Citizens of different 
States, — between Citizens of the 
same State claiming Lands 
under Grants of different States, 
and between a State, or the 
Citizens thereof, and foreign 
States, Citizens or Subjects. 



ARTICLE III. 

Section i. The judicial power 
of the Confederate States shall 
be vested in one Supreme Court, 
and in such inferior courts as the 
Congress may from time to time 
ordain and establish. The 
Judges-, both of the Supreme 
and inferior Courts, shall hold 
their officers during good be- 
havior, and shall, at stated times, 
receive for their services a com- 
pensation, which shall not be 
diminished during their continu- 
ance in office. 

Section 2. The judicial povi^er 
shall extend to all cases arising 
under this Constitution, the laws 
of the Confederate States, and 
treaties made, or which shall be 
made, under their authority ; to 
all cases affecting ambassadors, 
other public ministers, and con- 
suls ; to all cases of admiralty 
and maritime jurisdiction; to 
controversies to which the Con- 
federate States shall be a party ; 
to controversies between two or 
more States ; between a State 
and citizens of another State, 
where the State is plaintiff ; be- 
tween citizens claiming lands 
under grants of different States, 
and between a State or the citi- 
zens thereof, and foreign states, 
citizens, or subjects. But no 
State shall be sued by a citizen of 
subject of any foreign state. 



APPENDIX P.. 



3SS 



In all Cases affecting Ambas- 
sadors, other public Ministers 
and Consuls, and those in which 
a State shall be Party, the su- 
preme Court shall have original 
Jurisdiction. In all the other 
Cases before mentioned, the su- 
preme Court shall have appel- 
late Jurisdiction, both as to Law 
and Fact, with such Exceptions, 
and under such Regulations as 
the Congress shall make. 

The Trial of all Crimes, except 
Cases of Impeachment, shall be 
by Jury ; and such Trial shall be 
held in the State where the said 
Crimes shall have been com- 
mitted ; but when not committed 
within any State, the Trial shall 
be at such Place or Places as the 
Congress may by Law have 
directed. 

Section 3. Treason against 
the United States, shall consist 
only in levying War against 
them, or in adhering to their 
Enemies, giving them Aid and 
Comfort. No Person shall be 
convicted of Treason unless on 
the Testimony of two Witnesses 
to the same overt Act, or on 
Confession in open Court. 

The Congress shall have 
Power to declare the Punish- 
ment of Treason, but no Attain- 
der of Treason shall work Cor- 
ruption of Blood, or Forfeiture 
except during the Life of the 
Person attainted. 



In all cases affecting ambassa- 
dors, other public ministers and 
consuls, and those in which a 
State shall be party, the Su- 
preme Court shall have original 
jurisdiction. In all the other 
cases before mentioned, the Su- 
preme Court shall have appel- 
late jurisdiction, both as to law 
and fact, with such exceptions 
and under such regulations as 
the Congress shall make. 

The trial of all crimes, except 
in cases of impeachment, shall 
be by jury, and such trial shall 
be held in the State where the 
said crimes shall have been com- 
mitted ; but when not committed 
within any State the trial shall 
be at such place or places as the 
Congress may by law have 
directed. 

Section 3. Treason against 
the Confederate States shall con- 
sist only in levying war against 
them, or in adhering to their 
enemies, giving them aid and 
comfort. No person shall be 
convicted of treason unless on 
the testimony of two witnesses 
to the same overt act, or on con- 
fession in open court. 

The Congress shall have power 
to declare the punishment of 
treason ; but no attainder of 
treason shall^work corruption of 
blood, or forfeiture, except 
during the life of the person 
attainted. 



ARTICLE IV. 

Section i. Full Faith and 
Credit shall be given in each 
State to the public Acts, Rec- 
ords, and judicial Proceedings 



ARTICLE IV. 

Section i. Full faith and 
credit shall be given in each 
State to the public acts, records, 
and judicial proceedings of every 



356 



LIFE OF 79i*^OSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 



of every other State. And the 
Congress may by general Laws 
prescribe the Manner in which 
such Acts, Records and Proceed- 
ings shall be proved, and the 
Effect thereof 

Section 2. The Citizens of 
each State shall be entitled to 
all Privileges and Immunities of 
Citizens in the several States. 



A Person charged in any State 
with Treason, Felony, or other 
Crime, who shall flee from Jus- 
tice, and be found in another 
State, shall on Demand of the 
executive Authority of the State 
from which he 'fled, be delivered 
up, to be removed to the State 
having Jurisdiction of the Crime. 

No Person held to Service or 
Labour in one State, under the 
Laws thereof, escaping into an- 
other, shall, in Consequence of 
any Law or Regulation therein, 
be discharged from such Service 
or Labour, but shall be delivered 
up on Claim of the Party to 
whom such Service or Labour 
may be done. * 



Section 3. New States may be 
admitted by the Congress into 
this Union ; but no new State 
shall be formed or erected 
within the Jurisdiction of any 
other State ; nor any State be 
formed by the Junction of two 



other State. And the Congress 
may, by general laws, prescribe 
the mai^ner in which such acts, 
records, and proceedings shall 
be proved, and the effect thereof. 

Section 2. The citizens of 
each State shall be entitled to 
all the privileges and immunities 
of citizens in the several States, 
and shall have the right of transit 
and sojourn in any State of this 
Confederacy, with their slaves 
and other property ; and the right 
of property in said slaves shall 
not be thereby i))ipaired. 

A person charged in any State 
with treason, felony, or other 
crime against the laws of snch 
State, who shall flee from jus- 
tice, and be found in another 
State, shall on demand of the 
Executive authority of the State 
from which he fled, be delivered 
up, to be removed to the State 
having jurisdiction of the crime. 

No slave or other person held 
to service or labor i?i any State 
or Territory of the Confederate 
States, under the laws thereof, 
escaping or lawfully carried into 
another, shall, in consequence 
of any law or regulation therein, 
be discharged from such service 
or labor ; but shall be delivered 
up on claim of the party to whom 
such slave belongs, or to whom 
such service or labor may be due. 

Section 3. Other States may 
be admitted into this Cofifederacy 
by a vote of two thirds of the 
whole House of Represe7itatives 
and tzvo thirds of the Senate, the 
Senate voting by States ; but no 
new State shall be formed or 



APPENDIX B. 



357 



or more States, or Paris of 
States, without the Consent of 
the Legislatures of the States 
concerned as well as of the 
Congress. 



The Congress shall have 
power to dispose of and make 
all needful Rules and Regula- 
tions respecting the Territory or 
other Property belonging to the 
United States ; and nothing in 
this Constitution shall be so con- 
strued as to Prejudice any Claims 
of the United States, or of any 
particular State. 



Section 4. The United States 
shall guarantee to every State in 
this Union a Republican Form 



erected within the jurisdiction 
of any other State; nor any 
State be formed by the junction 
of two or more States, or parts 
of States, without the consent of 
the Legislatures of the States 
concerned, as well as of the 
Congress. 

The Congress shall have 
power to dispose of and make 
all needful rules and regulations 
concerning the property of the 
Confederate States, including the 
lands thereof. 



The Confederate States may 
acquire new territory ; and Con- 
gress shall have power to legis- 
late and provide governments for 
the inhabitants of all territory 
belonging to the Confederate 
States, lying without the limits of 
the several Slates ; and m,ay per- 
mit thetn, at such tim-es and in 
such manner as it may by law 
provide, to form States to be ad- 
mitted into the Confederacy. In 
all such territojy, the institution 
of negro slavery, as it now exists 
in the Confederate States, shall 
be recognized and protected by 
Congress and by the territorial 
government ; a^id the inhabitants 
of the several Confederate States 
and Territories shall have the 
right to take to such Territory 
any slaves lawfully held by them 
in any of the States or Terri- 
tories of the Confederate States. 

The Confederate States shall 
guarantee to every State that 
now is or hereafter m.ay becornd 



358 



LIFE OF S^il^OSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 



of Government, and shall pro- 
tect each of them against Inva- 
sion, and on Application of the 
Legislature, or of he Executive 
(when the Legislature cannot be 
convened) against domestic Vio- 
lence. 

ARTICLE V. 
The Congress, whenever two- 
thirds of both Houses shall 
deem it necessary, shall propose 
Amendments to this Constitu- 
tion, or, on the application of 
the Legislatures of two-thirds of 
the several States, shall call 
a Convention for proposing 
Amendments, which, in either 
Case, shall be valid to all In- 
tents and Purposes, as Part of 
this Constitution, when ratified 
by the Legislatures of three- 
fourths of the several States, or 
by Conventions in three-fourths 
thereof, as the one or the other 
Mode of Ratification may be 
proposed by the Congress : Pro- 
vided that no Amendment which 
may be made prior to the Year 
one thousand eight hundred and 
eight shall in any Manner affect 
the first and fourth Clauses in 
the Ninth Section of the first 
Article ; and that no State, with- 
out its Consent, shall be de- 
prived of its equal Suffrage in 
the Senate. 

ARTICLE VI. 
All Debts contracted and En- 
gagements entered into, before 
the Adoption of this Constitution, 
shall be as valid against the 
United States under thisConstitu- 
tion, as under the Confederation. 



a member of this Confederacy y a 
republican form of government ; 
and sh^U protect each of them 
against invasion ; and on appli- 
cation of the Legislature (or of 
the Executive when the Legisla- 
ture is not in sessiofi), against 
domestic violence. 

ARTICLE V. 
Section i. Upon the demand 
of any three States, legally as- 
sembled in their several conven- 
tions the Congress shall summon 
a Convention of all the States, to 
take into consideration such 
amendments to the Constitution 
as the said States shall concur i?i 
suggesting at the time when the 
said demand is made ; and should 
any of the proposed ainefidments 
to the Constitution be agreed on 
by the said Convention— voting 
by States — and the same be rati- 
fied by the Legislatures of two 
thirds of the several States, or 
by conventions in two thirds 
thereof^-As the one or the other 
mode of ratification may be pro- 
posed by the general Convention 
— they shall thenceforward form 
a part of this Constitution. But 
no State shall, without its con- 
sent, be deprived of its equal 
representation in the Senate. 



ARTICLE VI. 

The Governm,ent established 
by this Constitution is the succes- 
sor of the Provisional Govern- 
ment of the Confederate States of 
America, and all the laws passed 
by the latter shall continue in 



APPENDIX B. 



359 



This Constitution, and the 
Laws of the United States which 
shall be made in Pursuance 
thereof; and all Treaties made, 
or which shall be made, under 
the authority of the United 
States, shall be the supreme 
Law of the Land ; and the Judges 
in every State shall be bound 
thereby, any Thing in the Con- 
stitution or Laws of any State to 
the Contrary notwithstanding. 

The Senators and Representa- 
tives before mentioned, and the 
Members of the several State 
Legislatures, and all executive 
and judicial Officers, both of the 
United States and of the several 
States, shall be bound by Oath 
or Affirmation, to support this 
Constitution ; but no religious 
Test shall ever be required as a 
Qualification to any Office or 
public Trust under the United 
States 



force until the same shall be 
repealed or modified ; and all the 
officers appointed by the same 
shall remain in office until their 
successors are appointed and 
qualified, or the offices abolished. 

All debts contracted and en- 
gagements entered into before 
the adoption of this Constitution 
shall be as valid against the Co7i- 
federate States under this Con- 
stitution as under the Provi- 
sional Government. 

This Constitution, and the 
laws of the Confederate States 
made in pursuance thereof, and 
all treaties made or which shall 
be made under the authority of 
the Confederate States, shall be 
the supreme law of the land ; 
and the Judges in every State 
shall be bound thereby, any- 
thing in the Constitution or laws 
of any State to the contrary not- 
withstanding. 

The Senators and Representa- 
tives before mentioned, and the 
members of the several State 
Legislatures, and all executive 
and judicial officers, both of the 
Confederate States and of the 
several States, shall be bound 
by oath or affirmation to sup- 
port this Constitution ; but no 
religious test shall ever be re- 
quired as a qualification to any 
office or public trust under the 
Confederate States. 

The enumeration in the Con- 
stitution, of certain rights, shall 
not be construed to deny or dis- 
parage others retained by the 
people of the several States. 

The powers not delegated to 
the Confederate States by the 



36o 



LIFE OF 



^^fc 



JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 



ARTICLE VII. 

The Ratification of the Con- 
ventions of nine States, shall be 
sufficient for the Establishment 
of this Constitution between the 
States so ratifying the Same. 



Constitution, nor prohibited by 
it to the States, are reserved to 
the States, respectively, or to 
the peftple thereof. 

ARTICLE VII. 

The ratification of the Con- 
ventions oi five States shall be 
sufficient for the establishment 
of this Constitution between the 
States so ratifying the same. 

Whe7t five States shall have 
ratified this Co7istitution, in the 
■jnanner before specified, the Con- 
gress under the Provisional Con- 
stitution shall prescribe the time 
for holding the election! of Presi- 
dent and Vice-President, and for 
the tneeting of the electoral col- 
lege, and for coimting the votes, 
and inaugurating the President. 
They shall also prescribe the 
time for holding the first election 
of members of Congress wider 
this Constitution, and the time 
for assembling the same. Until 
the assembling of such Congress, 
the Congress under the Provi- 
sional Constitution shall continue 
to exercise the legislative powers 
granted them ; not extending be- 
yond the time limited by the Con- 
stitution of the Provisional Gov- 
ernm^ent. 



Articles in Addition to, and Amendment of, the Constitution of the 
United States of America. Proposed by Congress, and ratified 
by the Legislatures of the several States, pursuant to the fifth 
article of the original Constitution. 

ARTICLE I. 

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of 
religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the 
freedom of speech, or of the press ; or the right of the people 



APPENDIX B, 361 

peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a 
redress of grievances. 

ARTICLE II. 

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free 
State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be 
infringed. 

ARTICLE III. 

No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, 
without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a 
manner to be prescribed by law. 

ARTICLE IV. 

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, 
papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, 
shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon prob- 
able cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly 
describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be 
seized. 

ARTICLE V. 

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise 
infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand 
Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the 
Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; 
nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice 
put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any 
Criminal Case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of 
life, liberty, or property, without due process of law ; nor shall 
private property be taken for public use, without just compensation. 

ARTICLE VI. 

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to 
a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and dis- 
trict wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district 
shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed 
of the nature and cause of the accusation ; to be confronted with 
the witnesses against him ; to have Compulsory process for obtain- 
ing Witnesses in his favour, and to have the Assistance of Counsel 
for his defence. 

ARTICLE VII. 

In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall 
exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, 
and no fact tried by a jury shall be otherwise re-examined in any 



362 LIFE OF ^i^^ JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON. 

Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the 
common law. 

ARTICLE VIII. 
Excessive oail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, 
nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted. 

\RTICLE XII.* 
The Electors shall meet in their respective states, and vote by 
ballot for President and Vice President, one of whom, at least, 
shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves ; they 
shall name in their ballots the person voted for as President, and 
in distinct ballots the person voted for as Vice President, and they 
shall make distinct lists of all persons voted for as President, and 
of all persons voted for as Vice President, and of the number of 
votes for each, which lists they shall sign and certify, and transmit 
sealed to the seat of the government of the United States, directed 
to the President of the Senate ; — The President of the Senate shall, 
in presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all 
the certificates and the votes shall then be counted ; — The person 
having the greatest number of votes for President, shall be the 
President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of 
Electors appointed ; and if no person have such majority, then 
from the persons having the highest numbers not exceeding three 
on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Repre- 
sentatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President. But 
in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by states, the 
representation from each state having one vote ; a quorum for this 
purpose shall consist of a member or members from two-thirds of 
the states, and a majority of all the states shall be necessary to a 
choice. And if the House of Representatives shall not choose a 
President whenever the right of choice shall devolve upon them, 
before the fourth day of March next following, then the Vice Presi- 
dent shall act as President, as in the case of the death or other 
constitutional disability of the President.— The person having the 
greatest number of votes as Vice President, shall be the Vice 
President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of 
Electors appointed, and if no person have a majority, then from 
the two highest numbers on the list, the Senate shall choose the 
Vice President ; a quorum for the purpose shall consist of two- 
thirds of the whole number of Senators, and a majority of the 
whole number shall be necessary to a choice. But no person con- 
stitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to 
that of Vice President of the United States. 



*This article is substituted for Clause 3, Sec. I., Art. II, page 66:, and annuls it. 
It was declared adopted in 1804. 



LIFE AND REMINISCENCES 



OF 



JEFFERSON DAYIS. 



BY 

DISTINGUISHED MEN OF HIS TIME. 

INTRODUCTORY BY 

Hon. JOHN W. DANIEL, 

United States Senator from Virginia. 



IXiXiT7STI2,^T:BX). 



BALTIMORE: 
R. H. WOODWARD & COMPANY. 

1890. 



CJopyright, 1890, by 
K. H, WOODWAKD A COMPANY. 



TO THE 

PEOPI^K OF THE SOUTH 

TO YOU 

IS DEDICATED THIS MEMORIAI, VOI^UME 

OF YOUR HONORED AND MUCH I^OVED CHIEFTAIN 

JKFFKRSON DAVIS, 

THE STATESMAN, SOI^DIER, AND CHRISTIAN, IN WHOM 

WAS EMBODIED 

AS IN NO OTHER MAN 

THE POI^ITICAI, VIEWS AND SENTIMENTS, 

WHICH YOU 

SO ABI<Y MAINTAINED IN THAT MEMORABI^E CONFUCT OF 

1861-65. 



CONTENTS. 



LIFE. 

PAGE 

B1RTH-P1.ACE OF Jefferson Davis 3 

His Bart.y Life 3 

Training at Academy 3 

Student at Transylvania Academy 4 

Cadet at West Point . 4 

Second Lieutenant in the Regui^ar Army 4 

Service on the Northwestern Frontier 4 

Resigned His Commission 4 

Presidentiai, E1.ECT0R in 1845 5 

EivECTED TO U. S. House of Representatives 5 

PowTicAi, Career 6 

War With Mexico 6 

CoivONEi. OF THE ''Mississippi Rifi.es" 7 

Batti^e OF Monterey 8 

BattivE of Buena Vista 11 

C01.ONE1. Davis Wounded . , , 13 

Appointed U. S. Senator 14 

His Views Concerning the Union in 1850 15 

The Southern Triumvirate 19 

Speech on the Occasion of his Retiring from the U. S. 

Senate, Jan. 21, 1861 22 

Secretary of War under Franki^in Pierce ...... 31 

EiyECTED President of the Confederate States .... 34 

His Inaugurai, Address 34 

Speech at Richmond 37 

Historic Rooms 39 

V 



vi -^-^1 CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

A IvOVABi^E Man 41 

Attempted Assassination 42 

The Evacuation 42 

SUPP1.EMENTING AN Inadequate Sai^ary 43 

Si^ow TO Forget a Wrong 44 

His Vigorous Personalty 44 

His Last Visit to Richmond 45 

AnDERSONVIIvLE 46 

Surrender of Generai. Lee 50 

Assassination oe President Lincoi^n .50 

Departure from Richmond 50 

Incarcerated in Fortress Monroe 51 

Visits to Canada and Engi^and 52 

SETTI.EMENT AT BEAUVOIR 53 

A Day at Beauvoir 54 

The Buii^dings at Beauvoir 55 

The VENERABI.E Ex-President 56 

The Most Interesting Tai^ker 56 

Graduai. Emancipation of the Negro * . 58 

Mrs. Jefferson Davis 59 

Visit to his Birth-pi^ace 61 

Reception of Liberty Bei^i. 64 

His Last Ii^lness 65 

The Death Chamber 65 

Mrs. Davis' Ministrations 66 

C1.1NGING TO Hope 66 

The Patient Despondent 67 

The Fatai, Attack .* 68 

Breathed His Life Away 69 

A Crushing Bi,ow . . 70 

Cause of Death 71 

The Event Announced 71 

An Awed SHvEnce 72 

Brought Cut Fi^owers 74 

Mr. Davis* Body Servant 75 

More Than He Coui.d Bear 76 

Prayers for the Deceased 77 



CX)NTENTS. vii 

PAGE 

Touched the Features of the Dead 77 

The Casket 78 

Arranging for the Funerai, 78 

The Funerai, 82 

Scene at the City Hai^i, 82 

The Pai.1, Bearers 83 

Appearance of the Remains 84 

The Services 85 

Bishop Gai<i.eher*s Address 85 

Reverentiai, S11.ENCE 88 

The Procession 88 

T01.1.1NG Bei,i.s 89 

At the Cemetery 90 

The Finai. Ceremonies 92 

In the Tomb • . . 95 

A Question in Conci<usion 99 



REMINISCENCES AND ADDRESSES. 
A Tribute from a Ci^assmate 107 

By General George W. Jones, Ex-United States Senator. 

An Abi,E Man and a I^Eader 129 

By James Campbell, Ex Postmaster-General of the United States. 

Correction and Misrepresentation 141 

By J. I,. M. Curry, I.I,.D. 

Opinions and Impressions 152 

By Hon. A. H. Garland, Ex-Attomey-General of the United States. 

Memoriai, Address 158 

By Hon. J. Randolph Tucker. 

Jefferson Davis 168 

By Hon. G. G. Vest, U. S. Senator from Missouri. 



viii -«^^ CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Memoriai< Address 175 

By Rev. Moses Hoge, D.D. 

Ex-Presidknt Davis in Texas in 1875 188 

By Ex-Governor F. R. I^ubbock. 

Reminiscence 194 

By General A. R. I^awton, Ex-Minister to Russia and Quartermaster- 
General in the Confederate Army. 

JEFEERSON Davis as I knew Him 204 

By Hon. Reuben Davis. , 

RecoIvLEctions and Tribute 214 

By Hon. George Davis, Member of Mr. Davis' Cabinet. 

"My Dead Hero" 224 

Bv Rev. Charles Minnigerode, D.D., Mr. Davis' Pastor during the War. 

An American to be Proud of 242 

By Colonel Charles Marshall, Member of General R. E- l^ee's Staff. 

Address and Tribute 247 

By General Fitzhugh I^ee, Governor of Virginia. 

Reminiscences 259 

By United States Senator Reagan, Member of Mr. Davis' Cabinet. 

Address 269 

By Governor J. B. Gordon, of Georgia. 

Imprisonment of Jefferson Davis 274 

By Hon. S. Teakle Wallis, Member of Baltimore Bar. 



INTRODUCTORY. 

JEFFERSON DAVIS has been more misrepresented, and 
is to-day more misunderstood by many than any char- 
acter that figured in the Civil War of 1861 to 1864. 
That denunciation should be directed upon him by 
his enemies during the war was natural, — for he was the 
head and front of the Southern Confederacy, and a blow at 
him of any kind was a blow at the cause he represented. 
And thick and bitter as were the invectives that fell upon 
him during the conflict, they were neither thicker nor 
bitterer than those which fell upon Abraham I^incoln from 
his enemies. The war over, a change of feeling instantly 
began between the combatants. General Grant, speaking of 
the surrender at Appomattox, says, that the soldiers of the 
Union and of the Confederate Armies met like friends who 
had been long parted while fighting under the same flag. 
And certain it is that between the actual fighters of the war, 
bitterness rapidly declined ; and toward the military leaders 
of both sides who had distinguished themselves by soldierly 
virtues, there grew up a feeling of admiration and kinness 
on the part of their late antagonists. 

Toward Abraham Lincoln sentiment also changed. It 
was soon felt by the Southern people that considering the 
circumstances in which he was placed he had shown 
as great humanity as would have been shown by any 
other in his stead ; and while this conviction softened the 
asperities of the War, the great abilities he had exhibited 
created high respect. There are few, if any, in the South 

xiii 



xiv ^^^K^TRODUCTORY. 

who do not believe that the crime which closed his life was 
a deep and permanent misfortune to the country, and 
especially to the South. 

Toward Jefferson Davis, however, the North very slowly 
relented. lyce and Jackson and other Confederate chieftains 
won their admiration. Divines, orators, editors and states- 
men frequently spoke of them and their virtues in terms of 
highest praise ; and it was not long before Northern 
audiences would applaud reference to their characters or 
their exploits with ready and generous enthusiasm. 

Jefferson Davis seemed to stand apart in Northern 
estimate from his companions ; and while the healing work 
of time went on, it did not seem to cure the harshness of 
sentiment toward him. 

I think this was due to several causes : 

1. He was regarded as responsible for the War, and as its 
incarnation. 

2. The assassination of Lincoln directed upon him, as 
the opposing leader, a retaliatory spirit. 

3. It was taught and believed that he was responsible 
for the suffering of Northern soldiers in Southern prisons. 

4. He was proud and unbending in his disposition ; and 
declined to apply for pardon. 

5. He dedicated the remainder of his life to the vindication 
of the cause of which he was the head. 

But while these circumstances kept alive beyond their 
time a vindictive feeling toward Jefferson Davis, it was 
noticeable that it began to vSubside before he died. When 
he was laid to rest many noble tributes to his manly virtues 
flowed from Northern lips and pens ; and it is safe to 
say that a new tide of feeling has set in. 

I believe it will continue until all America will realize 
that Jefferson Davis was one of the purest and bravest of 



INTRODUCTORY. XV 

the public men which our country has produced ; — that he 
was an honest, able and clear thinker, and a true seeker for 
the good of humanity. 

He was the incarnation of the Southern cause. His 
abilities made him so. But he was no more responsible for 
the War than thousands and tens of thousands on both 
sides. He loved peace and he loved the Union, He 
grieved to see it torn asunder ; and he clung to it as long as 
accommodation was possible. The people in their move 
toward secession were ahead of their leaders. They instinc- 
tively divined the irrepressible conflict and like a crowd in a 
street they pushed the foremost forward. 

When Ivincoln died by a foul blow, the North was fren- 
zied. Many believed the assassin was prompted by Confed- 
erate connivance, and reward was offered for Jefferson 
Davis' capture as an accessory to the crime. This is all 
fully disproved now as absurdly false ; but the fires of 
resentment scathed Jefferson Davis while yet passion was 
wild — and unreasoning. 

It is clearly demonstrated now that, so far from sharing 
any responsibility for the sufferings of prisoners, he did his 
best to avert and alleviate them. He tried to get exchanges, 
— he sent a delegation of the prisoners to Washington to 
represent their own situation ;— he sent Alexander H. Ste- 
phens on a special mission for the same purpose ; — he 
proposed that each side send surgeons, money and medicines 
to their men in captivity ; — and he finally gave up Federal 
prisoners — sick and well, — without exchange, rather than 
have them suffer in Confederate hands. 

There were sixty thousand more Federal prisoners in 
Southern prisons, than there were Confederate prisoners in 
Northern prisons ; — and yet, four thousand more Confed- 
erates died in prison. It is easier to protect from cold than 



xvi *'^*HiJ^TRODUCTORY. 

from heat ; and the North was ten-fold more able to provide 
for captives than the South. There is no argument possible 
that would convict Jefferson Davis of cruelty to prisoners, 
that would not more deeply convict Abraham Lincoln. 
When men get reasonable enough to look on both sides, 
and do justice, they will regret the deep wrong done to 
Jefferson Davis in attempts to criminate him. His name is 
as sure of its vindication as time is to roll by. 

The proud and self-poised demeanor of Jefferson Davis, 
and his declination to ask pardon, angered some. General 
Lee had applied for pardon and been refused it. Had 
Jefferson Davis applied, it would have only subjected him 
to humiliation. In not doing so, he stood for a principle. 
The Federal Constitution forbade Congress to enact an 
" ex post facto " law ; that is, a law fixing punishment after 
the offence. Never tried for treason, he was yet punished 
by the ipse dixit of partisan legislation. The Government 
and the Constitution were revolutionized in order to reach 
him. A great and fundamental doctrine of civil liberty was 
overturned. All this will be fully appreciated by the masses 
in time, and many who have derided Jefferson Davis will 
applaud the integrity, the courage, and the unselfish devo- 
tion with which he adhered to his convictions. 

The tenacious affection for his people, and the noble 
resolution to defend their fame, which characterized the 
declining years of Jefferson Davis, disclosed a character of 
rare beauty and grandeur. He had no ambition for himself. 
He knew his race was run, and he did not wish to prolong 
it. No honor did he crave at the hands of any — not even 
that of re-entering the Senate from Mississippi, which, 
so far as her people were concerned, he could have done. 
He thirsted for higher things than the transient glories of 
power and station. He laid the world aside without a sigh 



INTRODUCTORY. xvii 

for the parting. The honor of his people, and his cause, 
and himself :— this was all that the world could give which 
he desired. And this he has left upon a sure foundation. 

Intense as have been the passions of the past, they will 
subside. Violent as have been the struggles of great 
interests, their wounds will be healed. Terrible as are the 
memories of strife, truth and justice will soften their harsh 
lines. The character of Jefferson Davis will grow in the 
general estimate. Scholars will ponder it, and will bring to 
the light the facts which have been neglected or ignored ; 
and statesmen who have been under the spur of interest to 
paint him darkly, will feel that impulse to do justice which 
springs up from a sense of injustice done. 

A ripe scholar, a vigorous writer, a splendid orator, a 
brave soldier, a true gentleman, an accomplished statesman, 
a sturdy champion, a proud, pure patriot, a lover of liberty, 
a hero : this is the Jefferson Davis that history will cherish. 
And while we can scarce quite say with the editor of the 
Neiv York Sun, that "he outlived enmity and personal 
detraction," we can endorse the liberality and truth of his 
opinion that, **he lived long enough to see the political 
atmosphere purged of prejudice and rancor, and to forecast 
in the candid attitude of Northern contemporaries the sober 
and unbiassed judgment of posterity." 

I hope this book will aid in the better understanding of 
Jefferson Davis, and in the further amelioration of the feel- 
ings engendered by an apparently unavoidable and unhappy 
strife. I look upon those men who attempt to instruct the 
rising generation in hatred and animosity, as the worst 
enemies of their country and of the human race. There is 
a chivalry of peace higher than the chivalry of war. The 
people who are to live together must live in mutual self- 
respect or in mutual unhappiness. We cannot lower the 



xviii INTRODUCTORY. 



caste of a section without lowering the caste of the coun- 
try. 

If the people of America would devote the time given to 
detracti'ons to the encouragement of each other, which flows 
from the prompt recognition of virtues and their just praise, 
our country would lack in nothing for the prosperity and 
welfare of its people. If that prosperity and welfare are 
arrested or impeded, it will be by nothing more than through 
the agency of bigotry and partisanry, who refuse to see good 
in aught that comes in conflict with imrq^ediate interests. 

Generous thought and generous speech are as essential to 
progress as a sound currency, or a sound system of taxation. 
No country is better fitted to produce them than our own ; 
and in them it will find heralds of the highest destiny. 



John W. Daniel. 



LIFE OF JEFFERSON DAVIS. 



JEFFERSON DAYIS was by birth a Kentuckian. 
He was born on the 3d day of June, 1808, 
in Christian County, but in a part of it that 
afterwards became Todd County. About his birth- 
place has grown up the village of Fair view, and on 
the exact spot now stands the Fairview Baptist 
Church, which received the ground by gift from the 
distinguished man that there began his being. His 
father was Samuel Davis, a native of Georgia, who 
removed from that State to Kentucky not many 
years after the War of the Revolution, in which he 
had rendered gallant service as a captain of infantry. 
When Jefferson was less than ten years old, his 
father l^ft Kentucky and settled in Mississippi, then 
a territory. Thus early in the history of Mississippi, 
and in the life of Davis, was formed a relation that 
continued through many years, and became to both 
alike a matter of highest pride. After preparatory 

training at a neighboring academy, young Davis 

3 



LIFE OF JEFFERSON DAVIS. 



returned to his native State for the purpose of 
studying in Transylvania University. He remained 
in this institution until 1824, "when he was appointed 
by President Monroe to a cadetship at West Point. 
Here he had R. E. Lee for a class-mate. The two 
were destined for another companionship of which 
neither had, at this time, the faintest dream. Would 
we see Jefferson Davis as a cadet ? He is thus de- 
scribed : " He was distinguished in the corps for his 
manly bearing, his high-toned and lofty character. 
His figure was very soldierlike and rather robust; 
his step springy, resembling the tread of an Indian 
brave on the war-path." He was graduated at the 
military academy in 1828, when he was just twenty 
years of age. His graduation gave him a second- 
lieutenancy in the regular army ; and, being assigned 
to the infantry, he was sent to perform service on 
the northwestern frontier. He won distinction, and 
was promoted to the rank of first lieutenant of dra- 
goons. It is said that the savages with whom Lieu- 
tenant Davis had to deal were awed by his intrepidity 
and won by his kindness. After a military service 
of seven years on the frontier, he resigned his com- 
mission. 

His resignation from the army brought him back 
to Mississippi in 1835. He soon after married a 
daughter of General (then Colonel) Zachary Taylor, 
and retiring to a farm in Warren County, he gave 



POLITICAL CAPEER. 5 

himself to cotton planting and to studies in favorite 
lines of investigation. This seclusion, continuing 
through eight years, he was the more disposed to 
prolong by reason of the fact that almost at the very 
commencement of it death deprived him of his wife. 
Mr. Davis' political career may be said to have begun 
in 1843. During that year he participated in local 
politics, the next year he was chosen a presidential 
elector, and in 1845 he was elected to the United 
States House of Representatives. When he took 
his seat in Congress he found great men there. To 
say nothing of the Senate, he met in the House 
Stephen A. Douglas, of Illinois ; R. M. T. Hunter, 
of Virginia ; Andrew Johnson, of Tennessee ; and 
John Quincy Adams, of Massachusetts. But con- 
tact with such men placed him at no disadvantage. 
He was a prominent participant in the discussions 
that arose during the session, and always commanded 
the respectful attention of his associates. His senti- 
ments were eminently patriotic and national. Speak- 
ing on the Oregon question, he said : " It is as the 
representative of a high-spirited and patriotic people 
that I am called on to resist this war clamor. My 
constituents need no such excitements to prepare 
their hearts for all that patriotism demands. When- 
ever the honor of the country demands redress; 
whenever its territory is invaded . . . Mississippi 
will come. And whether the question be one of 



LIFE OF JEFFERSON DAVIS. 



Northern or Southern, Eastern or Western aggres- 
sion, we will not stop to count the cost, but act as 
becomes the descendants of those who, in the War 
of the Revolution, engaged in unequal strife to aid 
our brethren of the North in redressing their in- 
juries." 

Mr. John Savage, in " On Living Representative 
Men," says : " John Quincy Adams had a habit of 
always observing new members. He would sit 
near them on the occasion of their Congressional de- 
but, closely eyeing and attentively listening if the 
speech pleased, but quickly departing if it did not. 
When Davis arose in the House the ex-President 
took a seat close by. Davis proceeded, and Adams 
did not move. The one continued speaking and the 
other listening ; and those who knew Mr. Adams's 
habit were fully aware that the new member had 
deeply impressed him. At the close of the speech 
the ' Old Man Eloquent ' crossed over to some friends 
and said, ' That young man is no ordinary man. 
He will make his mark yet.' " 

The war with Mexico was now going on, and Gen- 
eral Taylor, with his valiant little army, was already 
on the Rio Grande. Mississippi was aroused, and, as 
one result, a volunteer regiment was raised in and 
about Yicksburg. 

These soldiers enlisted as the First Regiment of 
Mississippi Volunteers, and afterwards became fa- 



COLONEL DAVIS. 7 

mous as the " Mississippi Rifles." At the organiza- 
tion, June, 1846, Mr. Davis was elected colonel. 
When the information reached him, he promptly re- 
signed his seat in Congress, and hastened to join 
the regiment, which he overtook in New Orleans. 
From this time Jefferson Davis may be considered as 
fairly started on that career which has sent his name 
over the civilized world. 

COLONEL DAVIS, 

taking command of his regiment, moved rapidly 
towards the scene of war, and reported to General 
Taylor at Camargo, just across the Rio Grande. 
The battles of Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma 
had already been fought, and the army was now 
about to march against Monterey. After the ar- 
rival of the Mississippians several weeks were spent 
in preparations ; but towards the last of August the 
advance movement began. On the 19th of Sep- 
tember, 1846, General Taylor appeared before the city, 
on the 21st the attack commenced, and on the 24th 
the garrison of ten thousand Mexicans surrendered. 
As this result was accomplished by an attacking 
force of six thousand five hundred men, it can be at 
once assumed that the battle of Monterey brought 
out some of the best qualities of the American sol- 
dier. Among all those that showed skill and gallan- 
try, Colonel Davis stands conspicuous. His own ac- 



8 LIM^F JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

count, taken from Belford's Magazine, of the opera- 
tions, claims less for himself than others would ac- 
cord to him; nevertheless, his own statement is 
given : 

" In an attack on Monterey General Taylor divided 
his force, sending one part of it by a circuitous road 
to attack the city from the west, while he decided to 
lead in person the attack on the east. The Missis- 
sippi Regiment advanced to the relief of a force 
which had attacked Fort Lenaria, but had been re- 
pulsed before the Mississippians arrived. They car- 
ried the redoubt, and the fort which was in the rear 
of it surrendered. The next day our force on the 
west side carried successfully the height on which 
stood the Bishop's Palace, which commanded the 
city. 

"On the third day the Mississippians advanced 
from the fort which they held, through lanes and 
gardens, skirmishing and driving the enemy before 
them until they reached a two-story house at the 
corner of the Grand Plaza. Here they were joined 
by a regiment of Texans, and from the windows of 
this house they opened fire on the artillery and such 
other troops as were in view. But, to get a better 
position for firing on the principal building of the 
Grand Plaza, it was necessary to cross the street, 
which was swept by canister and grape, rattling on 
the pavement like hail ; and as the street was very 



ATTACK ON MONTEREY. 9 

narrow it was determined to construct a flying bar- 
ricade. Some long timbers were found, and, with 
pack saddles and boxes, which served the purpose, 
a barricade was formed. 

"Here occurred an incident to which I have since 
frequently referred with pride. In breaking open a 
quartermaster's store-house to get supplies for this 
barricade, the men found bundles of the much- 
prized Mexican blankets, and also of very service- 
able shoes and pack-saddles. The pack-saddles were 
freely taken as good material for the proposed barri- 
cade ; and one of my men, as his shoes were broken 
and stones had hurt his feet, asked my permission to 
take a pair from one of the boxes. This, of course, 
was freely accorded ; but not one of the very valu- 
able and much-prized Mexican blankets was taken. 

"About the time that the flying barricade was com- 
pleted, arrangements were made by the Texans and 
Mississippians to occupy houses on both sides of the 
street for the purpose of more effective fire into the 
Grand Plaza. It having been deemed necessary to 
increase our force, the Mississippi sergeant-major 
was sent back for some companies of the First Mis- 
sissippi, which had remained behind. He returned 
with the statement that the enemy was behind us, 
that all our troops had been withdrawn, and that 
orders had been three times sent to me to return. 
Governor Henderson, of Texas, had accompanied the 



10 LI^^F JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

Texan troops, and on submitting to him the ques- 
tion what we should do under the message, he real- 
ized — as was very plain — that it was safer to remain 
where we were than — our supports having been 
withdrawn — to return across streets where we were 
liable to be fired on by artillery, and across open 
grounds, where cavalry might be expected to attack 
us. But, he added, he supposed the orders came 
from the general-in-chief, and we were bound to 
obey them. So we made dispositions to retire 
quietly ; but, in passing the first square we found 
that our movement had been anticipated, and that 
a battery of artillery was posted to command the 
street. The arrangement made by me was that I 
should go first; if only one gun was fired at me, 
then another man should follow ; and so on, another 
and another, until a volley should be fired, and then 
all of them should rush rapidly across before the 
guns could be reloaded. In this manner the men 
got across with little loss. We then made our way 
to the suburb, where we found that an officer of in- 
fantry, with two companies and a section of artil- 
lery, had been posted to wait for us, and, in case of 
emergency, to aid our retreat. 

" Early next morning General Ampudia, command- 
ing the Mexican force, sent in a flag and asked for 
a conference with a view to capitulation. General 
Taylor acceded to the proposition, and appointed 



BATTLE OF BUENA VISTA. H 

General Worth, Governor Henderson and myself 
commissioners to arrange the terms of capitulation. 
General Taylor received the city of Monterey, with 
supplies, much needed by his army, and shelter for 
the wounded. The enemy gained only the privilege 
of retiring peacefully, a privilege which, if it had 
not been accorded, they had the power to take by 
any one of the three roads open to them." 

Next came the battle of Buena Vista, where Gen. 
Taylor's little army of five thousand men received 
the attack of twenty thousand Mexicans, led by 
Santa Anna. Here again Jeiferson Davis and his 
riflemen rendered most distinguished service, and 
helped to win one of the most remarkable victories 
of modern times. A writer thus narrates the most 
prominent incidents of the battle : " The battle had 
been raging some time with fluctuating fortunes, and 
was setting against the Americans, when Gen. Tay- 
lor, with Col. Davis and others, arrived on the field. 
Several regiments were in full retreat . . . Col. 
Davis rode forward to examine the position of the 
enemy, and concluding that the best way to arrest 
our fugitives would be to make a bold demonstration, 
he resolved at once to make a new attack. It was 
a resolution bold almost to rashness, but the emer- 
gency was pressing. ... A deep ravine sepa- 
rated the combatants. Leaping into it, the Missis- 
sippians soon appeared on the other side, and with a 



12 LIFE T5lNtj:FFERS0N DAVIS. 

shout that was heard over the battle-field, they 
poured in a well-directed fire, and rushed upon the 
enemy. Their deadly aim and wild enthusiasm 
were irresistible. The Mexicans fled in confusion 
to their reserves, and Davis seized the commanding 
position they had occupied. . . . Afterwards a 
brigade of lancers, one thousand strong, were seen 
approaching at a gallop, in beautiful array, with 
sounding bugles and fluttering pennons. It was an 
appalling spectacle, but not a man flinched from his 
position. The time between our devoted band and 
eternity seemed brief indeed. But conscious that 
the eye of the army was upon them, that the honor 
of Mississippi was at stake, and knowing that, if 
they gave way or were ridden down, the unprotected 
batteries in the rear, upon which the fortunes of the 
day depended, would be captured, each man resolved 
to die in his place sooner than retreat. . . . Im- 
pressed with this extraordinary firmness where they 
had expected panic and flight, the lancers advanced 
more deliberately, as though they saw, for the first 
time, the dark shadow of the fate that was impend- 
ing over them. Col. Davis had thrown his men into 
the form of a re-entering angle (familiarly known as 
the famous V movement), both flanks resting on 
ravines, the lancers coming down on the intervening 
ridge. This exposed them to a converging fire, and 
the moment they came within rifle range each man 



CX)LONEL DAVIS WOUNDED. 13 

Singled out his object, and the whole head of the 
column fell. A more deadly fire never was delivered, 
and the brilliant array recoiled and retreated in dis- 
may. Shortly afterwards the Mexicans having con- 
centrated a large force ' on the right for their final 
attack, Colonel Davis was ordered in that direction. 
His regiment had been in action all day, exhausted 
by thirst and fatigue, much reduced by the carnage 
of the morning engagement, and many in the ranks 
suffering from wounds, yet the noble fellows moved 
at double-quick time. Bowless' little band of Indiana 
volunteers still acted with them. After marching 
several hundred yards they perceived the Mexican in- 
fantry advancing in three lines upon Bragg's battery, 
which, though entirely unsupported, held its position 
with a resolution worthy of its fame. The pressure 
upon him stimulated the Mississippians. They in- 
creased their speed, and when the enemy were with- 
in one hundred yards of the battery and confident of 
its capture, they poured in upon them a raking and 
destructive fire. This broke their right line, and the 
rest soon gave way and fell back precipitately. Here 
Colonel Davis was severely wounded." This pain- 
ful injury was received earl}^ in the day; but, de- 
spite his sufferings. Colonel Davis remained with his 
men until the end of battle. It should be noted that 
among the killed at Buena Vista was Henry Clay, 
Jr., son of the illustrious Kentucky statesman. 



14 LIFB-^I^ JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

SENATOR DAVIS. 

Jefferson Davis was twice a member of the United 
States Senate — from 1847-51 and then from 1857 to 
1861. Between these two terms came his candidacy 
for the Gubernatorial office in Mississippi and his 
service as Secretary of War ; nevertheless for con- 
venience his whole senatorial life will now be treated. 
Colonel Davis returned on crutches from Mexico. 
As the maimed hero crossed his country's border he 
was met with two opportunities. One was President 
Polk's commission, making him Brigadier-General 
of volunteers, and the other the appointment of the 
Governor of Mississippi, to fill a vacancy in the 
United States Senate caused by the death of one of 
the Mississippi Senators. The first he decUned on 
the ground that volunteers are but State Militia, 
and that, therefore, militia officers must receive 
their commissions from their respective States. The 
second he accepted, and thus secured for himself a 
field for which both nature and training had fitted 
him. When the Legislature came together, in 1848, 
they retained his services as Senator, and the Legis- 
lature of 1850 re-elected him to that exalted posi- 
tion. Concerning the period of Mr. Davis' senatorial 
life, from 1847 to 1851, he, himself, says : 

" In the United States Senate I was Chairman of 
the Military Committee, and I also took an active 



SENATOR DAVIS. 15 

part in the debates on the Compromise measures of 
1850, frequently opposing Senator Douglas, of Illi- 
nois, in his theory of squatter sovereignty, and advo- 
cating, as a means of pacification, the extension of 
the Missouri Compromise line to the Pacific." 

It will be interesting to note what were Mr. Davis' 
views at this time concerning the Union and its per- 
petuity. In a speech on the compromise measures 
of 1850 he thus expressed himself: 

" Give to each section of the Union justice ; give 
to every citizen of the United States his rights as 
guaranteed by the Constitution ; leave this Confeder- 
acy to rest upon that basis from which arose the fra- 
ternal feelings of the people, and I for one have no 
fear of its perpetuity ; none that it will survive be- 
yond the limits of human speculation, expanding 
and hardening with the lapse of time, to extend its 
blessings to ages unnumbered, and a people innum- 
erable ; to include within its empire all the useful 
products of the earth, and exemplify the capacity of 
a confederacy with general, well-defined powers, to 
extend inimitably without impairing its harmony or 
its strength." It was during this period that Mr. 
Davis was brought into association with Henry Clay, 
who still lingered in the Senate, but whose life was 
verging to its end. Two facts prevented the closest 
intimacy in antagonism of political views and dis- 
parity of age. But their personal relations were 



16 IJFE OF JEFFEKSON DAVIS. 



very pleasant. Mr. Clay could never forget that 
Mr. Davis and his son Henry were in the same army 
at Buena Vista, and that on that field from which 
the one brought away imperishable renown, the 
other lost his life. The Kentucky statesman called 
Mr. Davis " my young friend." On one occasion he 
said, "Come, my young friend, join us in these 
measures of pacification. Let us rally Congress and 
the people to their support, and they will assure to 
the country thirty years of peace. By that time " 
(turning to Jno. M. Berrien, who was a participant 
in the interview) " you and I will be under the sod 
and my young friend may then have trouble again." 
" No," said Davis, " I cannot consent to transfer to 
posterity a question which is as much ours as theirs, 
when it is evident that the sectional inequality, as 
it will be greater then than now, will render hope- 
less the attainment of justice." Mr. Clay said one 
day to Mr. Davis : " My poor boy, in writing home 
from Mexico, usually occupied about one-half of his 
letters in praising you." In the course of a heated 
public debate in the Senate, Mr. Clay used the fol- 
lowing language : " My friend from Mississippi — 
and I trust he will permit me to call him my friend, 
for between us there is a tie, the nature of which 
we both well understand." As the sentence fell 
from the lips of the aged Senator, his eyes were 
filled with tears. In 1851 terminated the first 



SENATOK DAVIS. 17 

period of Mr. Davis' senatorial career. How he 
came to resign his seat and what immediately fol- 
lowed he tells us in his autobiography. 

" The canvass for Governor commenced that year. 
The candidate of the Democratic party was by his 
opponents represented to hold extreme opinions — 
in other words, to be a disunionist. For, although 
he was a man of high character and had served the 
country well in peace and war, this supposition was 
so artfully cultivated that, though the Democratic 
party was estimated to be about eight thousand in 
majority, when the election occurred in September 
the Democratic candidates for a convention were 
defeated by a majority of over seven thousand, and 
the Democratic candidate for Governor withdrew. 

" The election for Governor was to occur in No- 
vember, and I was called on to take the place 
vacated by the candidate who had withdrawn from 
the canvass. It was a forlorn hope, especially as 
my health had been impaired by labors in the 
Summer canvass, and there was not time before the 
approaching election to make such a canvass as 
would be needed to reform the ranks of the Democ- 
racy. However, as a duty to the party I accepted 
the position, and made as active a campaign as time 
permitted, with the result that the majority against 
the party was reduced to less than one thousand. 
From this time I remained engaged in my quiet farm 



18 CfiP^)F JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

labors until the nomination of Franklin Pierce, 
when I went out to advocate his election, having 
formed a very high opinion of him as a statesman 
and a patriot, from observations of him in 1837 and 
1838, when he was in the United States Senate." 

Mr. Davis re-entered the Senate in December, 
1857. He had been elected by the Mississippi 
Legislature even before the expiration of his time 
of service as Secretary of War. When Mr. Davis 
left the Senate, he left the body convulsed with the 
questions growing out of slavery, and when he 
returned to it the same storm was raging, only it 
had increased in fury. He was found always where 
the tempest was wildest, as he claimed, not to in- 
voke the winds, but to save the ship. Mr. Davis 
was known to belong to the State's Eights school 
of politics, and he at once came to the front as a 
leader of those who took a State's Rights view of 
the nature of the Union established by the Consti- 
tution. This doctrine he vigorously defended, 
whatever might be the quarter from which it was 
assailed. The attack might come from Fessenden, 
the Republican, or from Douglas, the Democrat ; in 
either case he was its ready and able champion. 
A newspaper correspondent draws a portrait of the 
man as he appeared in the Senate during the ever 
memorable winter of 1859-60. Along with it are 
given pictures of two of his colleagues and intimate 



SENATOR DAVIS. 19 

political associates at the time ; but we shall be able 
to see Davis all the more clearly by the contrast 
with Hunter and Toombs. 

THE SOUTHERN TRIUMVIRATE. 

Washington City, January 21. — "Yesterday, 
when Hale was speaking, the right side of the 
chamber was empty, with the exception of a group 
of three who sat near the centre of the vacant 
space. This remarkable group, which wore the 
air if not the ensigns of power, authority and pub- 
lic care, was composed of Senators Davis, Hunter 
and Toombs. They wefe engaged in an earnest 
colloquy, which, however, was foreign to the argu- 
ment Hale was elaborating; for though the con- 
nection of their words was broken before it reached 
the gallery, their voices were distinctly audible, 
and gave signs of their abstraction. They were 
thinking aloud. If they had met together, under 
the supervision of some artist gifted with the faculty 
of illustrating history and character by attitude 
and expression, who designed to put them, in fresco, 
on the walls of the new Senate chamber, the com- 
bination could not have been more appropriately 
arranged than chance arranged it on this occasion. 
Toombs sits among the opposition on the left. Hun- 
ter and Davis on the right, and the fact that the 
two first came to Davis' seat — the one gravitating 



20 LlS^F JEFFEKSON DAVIS. 

to it from a remote, the other from a near point — 
may be held to indicate which of the three is the 
preponderating body in the system if preponder- 
ance there be, and whose figure should occupy the 
foreground of the picture if any precedence is to 
be recorded. Davis sat erect and composed; Hun- 
ter, listening, rested his head on his hand; and 
Toombs, inclining forward, was speaking vehe- 
mently. Their respective attitudes were no bad 
illustration of their individuality. Davis impressed 
the spectator, who observed the easy but authori- 
tative bearing with which he put aside or as- 
sented to Toombs' suggestions, with the notion of 
some slight superiority, some hardly acknowledged 
leadership; and Hunter's attentiveness and impas- 
sibility were characteristic of his nature, for his 
profundity of intellect wears the guise of stolidity, 
and his continuous study that of inertia; while 
Toombs' quick utterance and restless head bespoke 
his nervous temperament and activity of mind. 
But, though each is different from either of the 
others, the three have several attributes in common. 
They are equally eminent as statesmen and de- 
baters ; they are devoted to the same cause ; they 
are equals in rank and rivals in ambition ; and they 
are about the same age, and neither one — let young 
America take notice — wears either beard or mus- 
tache. I come again to the traits that distinguish 



SENATOR DAVIS. 21 

them from each other. In face and form, Davis 
represents the Norman type with singular fidelity, 
if my conception of that type be correct. He is 
tall and sinewy, with fair hair, grey eyes, which 
are clear rather than bright, high forehead, straight 
nose, thin, compressed lips, and pointed chin. His 
cheek bones are hollow, and the vicinity of his 
mouth is deeply furrowed with intersecting lines. 
Leanness of face, length and sharpness of feature, 
length of limb, and intensity of expression, rendered 
acute by angular, facial outline, are the general 
characteristics of his appearance." 

Events now moved rapidly towards their cul- 
mination. In November, 1860, Abraham Lincoln 
was elected President of the United States. He 
was thought by the Southern people to hold views 
and intentions hostile to their interests and insti- 
tutions — interests and institutions that they claimed 
the general government had no right to deal with, 
and which had been left by the Constitution to the 
management of the respective States. South Caro- 
lina was the first State to withdraw from the Union, 
having adopted her Ordinance of Secession on De- 
cember 20, 1860. Mississippi was but three weeks 
behind her ; for Mississippi went out on the 9th day 
of January, 1861. So soon as Mr. Davis received 
formal notice that his State had passed her act of 
secession, he in perfect consistency with views long 



22 lT?JK>F JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

held and frequently proclaimed, considered his 
functions in the United States Senate were at an end ; 
and, accordingly, he withdrew from that body on 
January 21, 1861. Before doing so, however, he 
delivered the valedictory address given below. It 
seems proper to give the speech in full, in order 
that every reader may judge for himself as to Mr. 
Davis' argument in justification of Mississippi, and 
as to the spirit he carried with him from the Senate 
to the new toils and responsibilities to which he 
would presently be called. 

"I rise, Mr. President, for the purpose of an- 
nouncing to the Senate that I have satisfactory 
evidence that the State of Mississippi, by a solemn 
ordinance of her people, in convention assembled, 
has declared her separation from the United States. 
Under these circumstances, of course, my functions 
are terminated here. It has seemed to me proper, 
however, that I should appear in the Senate to 
announce that fact to my associates, and I will say 
but very little more. The occasion does not invite 
me to go into argument ; and my physical condition 
would not permit me to do so, if otherwise ; and 
yet it seems to become me to say something on the 
part of the State I here represent, on an occasion 
so solemn as this. 

" It is known to Senators who have served with 



SENATOR DAVIS. 23 

me here, that 1 have, for many years, advocated, 
as an essential attribute of State sovereignty, the 
right of a State to secede from the Union. There- 
fore, if I had not believed there was justifiable 
cause ; if I had thought that Mississippi was acting 
without sufficient provocation, or without an exist- 
ing necessity, I should still, under my theory of the 
Government, because of my allegiance to the State 
of which I am a citizen, have been bound by her 
action. I, however, may be permitted to say that I 
do think she has justifiable cause, and I approve 
of her act. I conferred with her people before that 
act was taken, counseled them then that if the 
state of things which they apprehended should exist 
when the Convention met, they should take the 
action which they have now adopted. 

" I hope none who hear me will confound this 
expression of mine with the advocacy of the right 
of a State to remain in the Union, and to disregard 
its constitutional obligations by the nullification of 
the law. Such is not my theory. Nullification 
and secession, so often confounded, are, indeedi, 
antagonistic principles. Nullification is a remedy 
which it is sought to apply within the Union, and 
against the agent of the States. It is only to be 
justified when the agent has violated his constitu- 
tional obligations, and a State, assuming to judge 
for itself, denies the right of the agent thus to act. 



24 LIl'^^F JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

and appeals to the other States of the Union for 
a decision; but when the States themselves, and 
when the people of the States have so acted as to 
convince us that they will not regard our consti- 
tutional rights, then, and then for the first time, 
arises the doctrine of secession in its practical 
application. 

" A great man, who now reposes with his fathers, 
and who has often been arraigned for a want of 
fealty to the Union,' advocated the doctrine of 
nullification because it preserved the Union. It 
was because of his deep-seated attachment to the 
Union — his determination to find some remedy for 
existing ills short of a severance of the ties which 
bound South Carolina to the other States, that Mr. 
Calhoun advocated the doctrine of nullification, 
which he proclaimed to be peaceful — to be within 
the limits of State power, not to disturb the Union, 
but only to be a means of bringing the agent before 
the tribunal of the States for their judgment. 

" Secession belongs to a different class of reme- 
dies. It is to be justified upon the basis that the 
States are Sovereign. There was a time when none 
denied it. I hope the time may come again, when 
a better comprehension of the theory of our Gov- 
ernment, and the inalienable rights of the people 
of the States, will prevent any one from denying 
that each State is a sovereign, and thus may re- 



SENATOR DAVIS. 25 

claim the grants which it has made to any agent 
whomsoever. 

" I, therefore, say I concur in the action of the 
people of Mississippi, believing it to -be necessary 
and proper, and should have been bound by their 
action if my belief had been otherwise; and this 
brings me to the important point which I wish, on 
this last occasion, to present to the Senate. It is 
by this confounding of nullification and secession 
that the name of a great man, whose ashes now 
mingle with his mother earth, has been evoked to 
justify coercion against a seceded State. The 
phrase, ' to execute the laws,' was an expression 
which General Jackson applied to the case of a 
State refusing to obey the laws while yet a member 
of the Union. That is not the case which is now 
presented. The laws are to be executed over the 
United States, and upon the people of the United 
States. They have no relation to any foreign 
country. It is a perversion of terms — at least it is 
a great misapprehension of the case — which cites 
that expression for application to a State which has 
withdrawn from the Union. You may make war 
on a foreign State. If it be the purpose of gentle- 
men they may make war against a State which 
has withdrawn from the Union ; but there are no 
laws of the United States to be executed within 
the limits of a seceded State. A State, finding 



26 LTWMif JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

herself in the condition in which Mississippi has 
judged she is — in which her safety requires that 
she should provide for the maintenance of her rights 
out of the Union — surrenders all benefits (and they 
are known to be many), deprives herself of the 
advantages (and they are known to be great), severs 
all the ties of affection (and they are close and en- 
dearing), which have bound her to the Union, and 
thus divesting herself of every benefit — taking upon 
herself every burden — she claims to be exempt 
from any power to execute the laws of the United 
States within her limits. 

"I well remember an occasion when Massachusetts 
was arraigned before the bar of the Senate, and 
when the doctrine of coercion was rife, and to be 
applied against her, because of the rescue of a 
fugitive slave in Boston. My opinion then was the 
same that it is now. Not in a spirit of egotism, 
but to show that I am not influenced, in my opin- 
ion, because the case is my own, I refer to that time 
and that occasion, as containing the opinion which 
I then entertained, and on which my present con- 
duct is based. I then said that, if Massachusetts, 
following her through a stated line of conduct, 
choose to take the last step which separates her 
from the Union, it is her right to go, and I will 
neither vote one dollar nor one man to coerce her 
back ; but will say to her, God speed in memory of 



SENATOR DAVIS. 27 

the kind associations which once existed between 
her and the other States. 

"It has been a conviction of pressing necessity — 
it has been a belief that we are to be deprived, in 
the Union, of the rights which our fathers be- 
queathed us — which has brought Mississippi into 
her present decision. She has heard proclaimed 
the theory that all men are created free and equal, 
and this made the basis of attack upon her social 
institutions; and the sacred Declaration of Inde- 
pendence has been invoked to maintain the position 
of the equality of the races. The Declaration of 
Independence is to be construed by the circum- 
stances and purposes for which it was made. The 
communities were declaring their independence ; 
the people of those communities were asserting that 
no man was born (to use the words of Mr. Jefferson) 
booted and spurred, to ride over the rest of man- 
kind; that men were created equal — meaning the 
men of a political community ; that there was no 
•divine right to rule; that no man inherited the 
right to govern; that there were no classes by 
which power and place descended to families, but 
that all stations were equally within the grasp of 
each member of the body politic. These were the 
great principles they announced; these were the 
purposes for which they made their declaration ; 
these were the ends to which their enunciation was 



28 LI?frWF JEFFEESON DAVIS. 

directed. They have no reference to the slave; 
else, how happened it, that,, among the items of 
arraignment against George III. was, that he en- 
deavored to do just what the North has been 
endeavoring of late to do, to stir up insurrection 
among our slaves. Had the Declaration announced 
that the negroes were free and equal, how was the 
prince to be arraigned for raising up insurrection 
among them ? And how was this to be enumerated 
among the high crimes which caused the colonies 
to sever their connection with the mother country ? 
When our constitution was formed, the same idea 
was rendered more palpable; for there we find 
provision made for that very class of persons as 
property; they were not put upon the footing of 
equality with white men — not even upon that of 
paupers and convicts ; but so far as representation 
was concerned, were discriminated against as a 
lower caste, only to be represented in the numerical 
proportion of three-fifths. 

" Then, Senators, we recur to the compact which- 
binds us together ; we recur to the principles upon 
which our Government was founded; and when 
you deny them, and when you deny to us the right 
to withdraw from a government, which, thus per- 
verted, threatens to be destructive to our rights, we 
but tread in the path of our fathers when we pro- 
claim our independence, and take the hazard. 



SENATOR DAVIS. 29 

This is done, not in hostility to others — not to in- 
jure any section of the country — not even for our 
own pecuniary benefit; but from the high and 
solemn motive of defending and protecting the 
rights we inherited, and which it is our duty to 
transmit unshorn to our children. 

" I find in myself, perhaps, a type of the general 
feeling of my constituents towards you. I am sure 
I feel no hostility towards you. Senators from the 
North. I am sure there is not one of you, what- 
ever sharp discussion there may have been between 
us, to whom I cannot now say, in the presence of 
my God, I wish you well ; and such, I am sure, is 
the feeling of the people I represent towards those 
you represent. I, therefore, feel that I but express 
their desire, when I say I hope, and they hope, 
for peaceable relations with you, though we must 
part. They may be mutually beneficial to us in 
the future, as they have been in the past, if you so 
will. The reverse may bring disaster on every 
portion of the country ; and if you will have it thus, 
we will invoke the God of our fathers, who deliv- 
ered us from the power of the lion, to protect us 
from the ravages of the bear ; and thus, putting our 
trust in God, and in our firm hearts and strong 
arms, we will vindicate the right as best we may. 

" In the course of my services here, associated, 
at different times, with a great variety of Senators, 



30 LIFfrlW JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

I see now around me some with whom I have 
served long; there have been points of collision, 
but whatever offence there has been to me, I leave 
here, — I carry with me no hostile remembrance. 
Whatever offense I have given, which has not been 
redressed, or for which satisfaction has not been 
demanded, I have, Senators, in this hour of our 
parting, to offer you my apology for any pain 
which, in the heat of discussion, I have inflicted. 
I go hence unincumbered of the remembrance of 
any injury received, and having discharged the 
duty of making the only reparation in my power 
for any injury offered. 

"Mr. President and Senators, having made the 
announcement which the occasion seemed to me to 
require, it only remains for me to bid you a final 
adietL" 

Thus a stately and striking form that had long 
been familiar to those visiting the Senate disap- 
peared from its precincts forever. 

It is proper here to add a short clipping that 
shows the impression made by Mr. Davis upon the 
employes of the Senate. 

Mr. E. Y. Murphy, of the Senate stenographic 
corps, knew Mr. Davis when he was a Senator, and 
says he recollects particularly how kind Mr. Davis 
was to all the employes about the Senate. He 



SECRETARY DAVIS. 31 

knew them all personally, and would ask after 
them and after their families where they had any. 
He complimented the stenographic reports of the 
Senate. He was a favorite with all the employes 
for another reason, and that was because he would 
always endeavor to secure extra compensation for 
them. 

SECRETARY DAVIS. 

As we have already seen, the end of the year 

1851 found Mr. Davis living quietly on his 
plantation in Mississippi, a retirement resulting 
from his unsuccessful canvass for the office of Gov- 
ernor of the State. The Presidential election of 

1852 called Franklin Pierce, of New Hampshire, to 
the chief-magistracy of the nation. He was the 
nominee of the Democratic party, and during the 
canvass Mr. Davis supported him most heartily. 
President-elect Pierce offered Mr. Davis a place in 
his Cabinet, which he at first declined, but after- 
wards the portfolio of War was accepted. In the 
same Cabinet Wm. L. Marcy was Secretary of 
State, and Caleb Cushing was Attorney-General. 
Mr. Davis thus speaks of his administration of the 
affairs of the department entrusted to him : 

^* During these four years, I proposed the intro- 
duction of camels for service on the Western plains, 
a suggestion which was adopted. I also introduced 
an improved system of infantry tactics ; effected the 



32 lW^^^F JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

substitution of iron for wood in gun-carriages; se- 
cured rifled muskets and rifles.and the use of Minni^ 
balls, and advocated the increase of the defenses of 
the sea coast by heavy guns and the use of large- 
grain powder. 

" While in the Senate I had advocated, as a mili- 
tary necessity and as a means of preserving the 
Pacific Territory to the Union, the construction of a 
military railway across the continent; and, as Sec- 
retary of War, I was put in charge of the surveys 
of the vari'ous routes proposed. Perhaps for a simi- 
lar reason — my previous action in the Senate — I 
was also put in charge of the extension of the United 
States Capitol. 

'^ The administration of Mr. Pierce presents the 
single instance of an Executive whose Cabinet wit- 
nessed no change of persons during the whole 
term." 

The following is clipped from the New York Her- 
aid : 

. " The only man now living who served under 
Secretary Davis' immediate administration in the 
Secretary's office is Major Wm. B. Lee, who was one 
of the seven clerks then forming the force in that 
division. He is still employed in the same office. 
He remembers Mr. Davis very well. He said this 
morning : — ' He was one of the best Secretaries of 
War who ever served. He was a kind, social man, 



SECRETAKY DAVIS. 33 

very considerate and pleasant to serve under. I 
never heard a complaint from one of the clerks. 
Socially, he was a most charming man, officially, 
very pleasant. He was a warm friend and a bitter 
enemy. I knew him many years, and as a man I 
found him a very good friend. He was a regular 
bull-dog when he formed an opinion, for he would 
never let go. About the only very important event 
of his administration was his quarrel with General 
Scott, which was very bitter, and caused a great 
deal of hard feeling.' 

" Speaking of the time when Mr. Davis was Sec- 
retary of War, in the administration of President 
Pierce, General Montgomery C. Meigs, formerly 
quartermaster-general of the army, said : — ^ My ac- 
quaintance with Mr. Davis began upon the occasion 
of my submitting to him the plans for the introduc- 
tion of water to the city of Washington. The Act 
of Congress providing for a supply of water to the 
city, placed the direction of the work in the hands 
of the President, who devolved it upon the Secretary 
of War as his representative. I was thus brought 
into a close intimacy with Mr. Davis and became 
much attached to him, and I think that this feeling 
was reciprocated in some measure by himself Mr. 
Davis was a most courteous and amiable man in 
those days, and I found intercourse with him very- 
agreeable. He was a man, too, of marked ability, 
3 



34 LIF?^F JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

and I quite looked up to him and regarded him as 
one of the great men of the time.' " 

PRESIDENT DAVIS. 

When Mr. Davis retired from the United States 
Senate on January 21, 1861, he went imme- 
diately to Mississippi. While journeying to his 
home he was appointed commander-in-chief of the 
forces that the State was raising to meet a conflict 
that seemed inevitable. He had not time to proceed 
far with the organization before he received notifica- 
tion that he had been elected Provisional President 
of the Confederate States. He reluctantly accepted 
the office, and was inaugurated at Montgomery, 
Alabama, on the 18th day of February, 1861. 
With what sentiments and purposes he entered upon 
his duties may be gathered from the following quo- 
tations taken from his inaugural address : 

" I enter upon the duties of the office to which I 
have been chosen, with the hope that the beginning 
of our career as a Confederacy may not be 
obstructed by hostile opposition to our enjoyment of 
the separate existence and independence which we 
have asserted, and, with the blessing of Providence, 
intend to maintain. Our present condition, achieved 
in a manner unprecedented in the history of nations, 
illustrates the American idea that government rests 
on the consent of the governed, and that it is the 



PKESIDENT DAVIS. 35 

right of the people to alter or abolish governments 
whenever they become destructive of the ends for 
which they were established. 

'' Sustained by the consciousness that the transi- 
tion from the former Union to the present Confed- 
eracy has not proceeded from a disregard on our 
part of just obligations, or any failure to perform 
any Constitutional duty; moved by no interest or 
passion to invade the rights of others ; anxious to 
cultivate peace and commerce with all nations, if 
we may not hope to avoid war, we may at least ex- 
pect that posterity will acquit us of having need- 
lessly engaged in it, 

" Reverently let us invoke of the God of our 
fathers to guide and protect us in our efforts to per- 
petuate the principles which, by His blessing, they 
were able to vindicate, establish and transmit to 
their posterity, and, with a continuance of His favor 
ever gratefully acknowledged, we may hopefully 
look forward to success, to peace, and to prosperity." 

Great events now followed each other in rapid 
succession. On March 4th, President Lincoln was 
inaugurated. On the next day, Messrs. Crawford 
and Forsyth arrived in Washington, as Commission- 
ers from President Davis "to negotiate friendly 
relations between the United States and the Confed- 
erate States of America, and for the settlement of 
all questions of disagreement between the two govern- 



36 lB^IH^F JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

ments on principles of right, justice, equity and good 
faith.'* On the 12th March, they addressed a for- 
mal communication to Mr. Seward, Secretary of 
War, fully revealing the nature and objects of their 
mission, and especially offering to treat with refer- 
ence to the withdrawal of the Federal forces from 
Forts Sumter and Pickens in Charleston harbor. 
The embassy was met, first, by promises to evacuate 
these strongholds within the limits of the Southern 
Confederacy, and then by a secret attempt to re-in- 
force them. When it became known to President 
Davis that the expedition had actually sailed, he 
issued to General Beauregard, commmanding in 
Charleston, an order to undertake the reduction of 
forts. He opened fire on April the 12th, and on the 
13th the surrender occurred. On the 15th, Presi- 
dent Lincoln issued a proclamation calling for sev- 
enty-five thousand men, and stating that they would 
be used for " maintaining the honor, the integrity 
and existence of the Union, and the perpetuity of 
the popular government." On May the 6th, Vir- 
ginia became a member of the Southern Confederacy. 
On the 20th of May the seat of the Confederate 
Government was removed from Montgomery to Kich- 
mond, and a few days thereafter Mr. Davis arrived 
in the latter city and established there an adminis- 
tration on which the observation of the world was 
to be focused through four eventful years. It was 



PRESIDENT DAVIS. 37 

evident now that war was at hand. The battle at 
Manassas in July was but the result of preparations 
that had been going on for two months. When it 
was known that the attack was about to be made by 
the Federal forces gathered at Washington, Presi- 
dent Davis took train and hastened to join the Con- 
federate army. He reached the scene of conflict 
just as the enemy were retiring, panic-stricken, from 
the field. In his " Rise and Fall of the Southern 
Confederacy," he gives a very graphic description of 
what he saw and heard along the road that led to 
the ground where the deadly struggle was going on. 
When, two days after, he returned to Richmond, a 
large crowd met him at the station. As he stepped 
from the cars he made the following impromptu 
speech : 

" Fellow-citizens of the Confederate States : — 

" I rejoice with you this evening in those better 
and happier feelings which we all experience, as 
compared with the anxieties of three days ago. 
Your little army, derided for its want of numbers, — 
derided for its want of arms, — derided for its lack of 
all the essential material of war, — has met the 
grand army of the enemy, routed it at every point, 
and it now flies in inglorious retreat before our vic- 
torious columns. We have taught them a lesson in 
their invasion of the sacred soil of Virginia; we 



38 Lli^gi' JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

have taught them that the grand old mother of 
Washington still nurses a band of heroes ; and a jet 
bloodier and far more fatal lesson awaits them 
unless they speedily acknowledge that freedom to 
w^hich you were born." President Davis continued 
to administer affairs under the Provisional Govern- 
ment until February, 1862, when that expired by 
limitation, and the Permanent Government was set 
up. On February 22d, Washington's birthday, and 
beside the monument erected to his memory by the 
State that claimed him as her own, Mr. Davis deliv- 
ered his inaugural address as the President of the 
Confederate States under their Permanent Govern- 
ment. The day was exceedingly uncomfortable and 
gloomy. The atmosphere was chill and the rain 
was poured down from the heavens, which seemed 
to have gone into mourning over recent reverses to 
the Confederate Army. The last sentence of the 
address was as follows : 

" With humble gratitude and adoration, acknowl- 
edging the Providence which has so visibly pro- 
tected the Confederacy during its brief but eventful 
career, to thee, God ! I trustingly commit myself, 
and prayerfully invoke thy blessing on my country 
and its cause." It would not be suitable here to 
follow President Davis through all the events that 
were crowded rapidly into the period during which 
he was the Chief Magistrate of the Southern Con- 



PRESIDENT DAVIS. 39 

federacy. But some reminiscences lingering in 
Richmond may be very properly given. 

HISTORIC ROOMS. 

During his residence here the President's office and 
the Cabinet rooms and other offices were in the gran- 
ite building now used as a post-office, custom-house 
and for other Governmental purposes. Mr. Davis' 
house was at the corner of Twelfth and Clay, almost 
opposite and about a dozen blocks north of his 
office. It was his custom to walk to the office in 
the morning. His usual route was through the 
Capitol Square. About ten o'clock each morning he 
could be seen coming down the graveled walks to 
the executive office. His private office in those days 
was the one now and almost ever since used as the 
United States Court-room. There it was, amid such 
familiar scenes, the President was arraigned before 
United States Circuit Judge Underwood on the 13th 
of May, 1867, to be tried for treason. He had been 
arrested in Georgia, and committed to a casement at 
Fortress Monroe, where he remained for weeks. 
He was finally brought here and came before the 
notorious Underwood, who bailed him, and that was 
the last ever heard of that famous trial. The Cab- 
inet room, the one in which Mr. Davis held his 
council with his official household, was the one just 
opposite the President's, and for years used by the 



40 LIfJ^F JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

clerk of the United States District Court. It was 
there that all of the military movements were dis- 
cussed by the head of the Confederacy and his 
advisers. 

XNTERESTma REMINISCENCES. 

" It was in the early part of the year 1865 that 
the writer, one of a secret joint committee of the 
Legislature of Virginia, called upon President Davis 
at his room in the custom-house in Richmond. The 
spokesman of the committee, addressing the Presi- 
dent, informed him that the Legislature of Virginia 
had directed the committee to inquire whether any 
further legislation could be suggested in aid of the 
Confederate cause. His response can never be for- 
gotten by any who heard it. There was in it the 
eloquence of deep feeling and the energy of an undy- 
ing resolve. While thanking the State, through its 
committee, for its kindly offer, he added that he 
thought Virginia had done her full duty, that her 
fair bosom had been furrowed by the ploughshare of 
war, and that the bones of her gallant sons were 
bleaching on every battle-field, and that all he could 
ask was that she would not waver in her confidence in 
the government. There was a pathos and depth of 
emotion in his remarks that impressed every mem- 
ber of the committee with the conviction that they 
were the utterances of a heart full of heroic fire and 
that felt no fear, though the clouds were dark and 



PKESIDENT DAVIS. 41 

the auguries to the common mind seemed pregnant 
of ill." 

No one in Richmond, or for that matter in the 
South, outside of his own family, saw more of Pres- 
ident Davis in those days than Mr. Wm. H. Davies. 
That gentleman, when about nineteen years of age, 
entered the President's service as confidential mes- 
senger. He was with him from the time Mr. Davies 
came here from Montgomery, Ala., until the night 
of evacuation. Referring to the Cabinet meetings, 
Mr. Davies said : 

"General Robert E. Lee was the only person 
ever permitted to enter the Cabinet unannounced. 
When he came in I merely opened the doors, and 
he walked into the council chamber. 

A LOVABLE MAN. 

" Yes, he was one of the most lovable men I ever 
knew. He was always dignified, calm and thor- 
oughly well-poised, but he treated everybody around 
him with courtesy. With me he was more like a 

father than an employer. Mr. Davis was a fine 

* 
rider — the finest, I think, I ever knew. It was his 

custom to ride out three or four times a week, or as 

much oftener as the weather and his official duties 

permitted. A favorite route was up Clay Street in 

the direction of Camp Lee. 



42 CHI^PF JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

ATTEMPTED ASSASSINATION. 

" He was nearly always alone, never having the 
slightest fear of his life. This, by the way, came 
near getting him into trouble one evening. I 
remember it just as well as if it only occurred yes- 
terday. The President rode out the Bloody Run 
road. When just below Rockett's some one fired a 
pistol at him from ambush. Luckily, the would-be 
assassin missed his mark. The man was subse- 
quently found concealed in the roof of one of the 
shanties in the neighborhood and arrested. He was 
never prosecuted, though. This incident never 
alarmed Mr. Davis, nor did he permit it to interfere 
with his evening equestrian exercise. He still con- 
tinued this unaccompanied. 

THE EVACUATION. 

*^ On the Sunday night of the evacuation of Rich- 
mond, I was at the President's mansion assisting in 
packing up to go South. The President had re- 
ceived several telegrams that day from General Lee 
and other commanders apprising him of the condi- 
tion of affairs, and, of course, we knew that the end 
had come. All around us in the Executive Man- 
sion was bustle and excitement incident to such an 
occasion. I remember well, just before the time for 
departure arrived, Mr. Davis sat on a divan in his 



PRESIDENT DAVIS. 43 

study, sad, but calm and dignified. He talked 
pleasantly with those around him. When his car- 
riage drove up to the door to carry him to the depot 
Mr. Davis lighted a cigar, took a seat in the convey- 
ance and was driven to the Danville depot, where 
he took the train for the South." 

SUPPLEMENTING AN INADEQUATE SALARY. 

In the early days of the Confederacy there were 
frequent receptions and levees at the Executive 
Mansion, but in the last year or so these were pretty 
well discontinued. Mr. Davis, as the President of 
the Confederacy, received a salary of $25,000, and 
this in Confederate money. Towards the close of 
the struggle the purchasing capacity of that amount 
was not sufficient to have maintained a small family 
in the humble walks of life. Despite these facts, all 
say that the President would never accept a cent 
from the government except his salary. Forage for 
his horses and other things could have been drawn 
from the Government, but his sterling and conscien- 
tious scruples of honor would never for a moment 
entertain the idea of stooping to any of these things. 
A gentleman connected with the President in those 
pinching times says : " I disposed of silverware and 
other household articles of value for Mr. Davis to 
supplement his salary. He refused, too, to accept 
from the city of Richmond the house in which he 



44 LlR^WF JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

dwelt. This was offered in fee-simple, but grace- 
fully declined." , 

SLOW TO FORGET A WRONG. 

Mr. Davis was a man slow to forget a serious 
wrong. This was shown in his treatment of the 
Emperor Napoleon. Mr. Davis thought that the 
former acted treacherously towards him in the 
course he pursued about France recognizing the 
Southern Confederacy. When Mr. Davis visited 
Paris, some time after the close of the war, Napoleon 
sent a special messenger to him with a pressing invi- 
tation to call on him. " Tell your majesty," said 
Mr. Davis to the messenger, " with my compliments, 
that I am much obliged, but if he wants to see me 
he must call on me." 

HIS VIGOROUS PERSONALITY. 

Very few persons, even those most intimately 
associated with him, could grasp the true character 
of the man. A distinguished ex-Confederate, whose 
duties during the war brought him in official con* 
tact with Mr. Davis, says : 

" He was a hard man to understand. No one 
could fail to appreciate his elevated standard of 
manhood, his lofty integrity, his remarkable ability. 
Yet it was hard to realize how he could be so wedded 
to his own opinions as to turn absolutely and invari- 



HIS LAST VISIT TO RICHMOND. 45 

ably a deaf ear to all counsel which conflicted with 
them. He never forgot a friend and never forgave 
an enemy. Mr. Davis used as pure English as any 
man I have ever read after. His style of composi- 
tion was remarkably graceful and eloquent, and 
many of his addresses during the war were couched 
in such language as to thrill through and through 
the coldest of natures. Literally it can be affirmed 
he never said a foolish thing. While he might often 
be considered by some as arbitrary and despotic in 
his conduct of public affairs, no man ever at the 
head of a government was more scrupulously con- 
scientious in abiding by the strict letter of the Con- 
stitution and law." 

HIS LAST VISIT TO EICHMOND. 

The ex-President returned to Richmond but once 
after his trial. The occasion of that visit was to 
attend the Robert E. Lee memorial service held 
here in Dr. Moore's church. On that occasion he 
was received with wild enthusiasm. 

The January number of Belford's Magazine con- 
tains the autobiography of the late Jefferson Davis 
and an article by him on Andersonville prison, to 
which his recent death lends extraordinary interest. 

No one . question connected with the Civil War 
has occasioned such bitter debate, or so widespread 
a feeling in the North as the alleged inhuman 



46 LIft^OF JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

treatment of Federal prisoners of war in the South. 
Discussing the subject with justice and candor, Mr. 
Davis shows how much of this ill feeling rests upon 
misapprehension and falsehood, and, what will be a 
sharp revelation to very many persons, that the suf- 
ferings and hardships of Confederate prisoners in 
Northern prisons not only equaled but even ex- 
ceeded those of Union prisoners at Andersonville 
and elsewhere. The writer supports his statements 
with a mass of proof which no upright mind can 
refuse to credit and which puts a new face upon the 
ancient feud. 

"Andersonville," he says, "was selected after 
careful investigation for the following reasons : It 
was in a high pine-wood region, in a productive 
farming country, had never been devastated by the 
enemy, was well watered and near to Americus, a 
central depot for collecting the tax in kind and pur- 
chasing provisions. The climate was mild," and* 
there were no "recognizable sources of disease." 
Persistence on the part of the United States in re- 
fusing to exchange prisoners " caused so large an in- 
crease in the number of the captured sent to Ander- 
sonville as to exceed the accommodation provided 
and thus augment the discomfort and disease of 
confinement. ... It was not starvation, as has 
been alleged, but acclimation, unsuitable diet and 
despondency which were the potent agents of dis- 



ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 47 

ease and death. Statements from gentlemen of 
high standing, who speak disinterestedly, are sub- 
mitted as conclusive on the question of * quantity ' 
of food at Andersonville prison." Quoting from a 
letter, Mr. Davis says : "' I can with perfect truth 
declare as my conviction that General Winder, who 
had control of the prisoners, was an honest, upright 
and humane gentleman. He had the reputation of 
treating the prisoners confided to his general super- 
vision with great kindness and consideration. . . . 
Both the President and Secretary of War always 
manifested great anxiety that the prisoners should 
be kindly treated and amply provided with food to 
the extent of our means.' " Again, Mr. Lawson 
quotes : '' ' The Federal prisoners were removed to 
Southwestern Georgia in the early part of 1864, to 
secure a more abundant supply of food.' " Quoting 
from Austin Flint, Jr.'s, " Physiology of Man," Mr. 
Davis says : " ' The effects of salt meats and farina- 
ceous food (at Andersonville) without vegetables 
were manifest in the great prevalence of scurvy. 
The scorbutic condition, thus induced, modified the 
course of every disease, poisoned every wound, and 
lay at the foundation of those obstinate and exhaust- 
ive diarrhoeas and dysenteries which swept off thou- 
sands of those unfortunate men,' " — i.e., the Federal 
prisoners of Andersonville. " President Davis had 
permitted three of the Andersonville prisoners to go 



48 l5IB^OF JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

to Washington to try and change the determination 
of their Government and procure a resumption of ex- 
changes. The prisoners knew of the failure of their 
mission when I was at Andersonville, and the effect 
was to plunge the great majority of them into the 
deepest melancholy, home-sickness and despondency. 
. . . The same Captain Wirz who was tried and 
hung as a murderer, warmly urged improvements 
for the benefit of the unhappy prisoners under his 
charge. ... I mention these facts to show that he 
(Captain Wirz) was not the monster he was after- 
wards represented to be, when his blood was called 
for by infuriate fanaticism. . . . The facts alluded 
to satisfied me that he was a humane man. . . . 
The real cause of all the protracted sufferings of 
prisoners, North and South, is directly due to the 
inhuman refusal of the Federal Government to 
exchange prisoners of war. . . . The greatest 
difficulty was experienced in procuring medicines 
and anti-scorbutics. These were made contraband 
by order of the Federal Government. . . . For 
a period of some three months Captain Wirz (who 
had himself suffered from gangrene in an old wound) 
and a few faithful officers were engaged night and 
day in ministering to the sick and dying. . . . 
In his trial certain Federal witnesses swore to his 
(Captain Wirz) killing certain prisoners in August, 
1864, when he was actually absent on sick leave 



EX-PEESIDENT DAVIS. 49 

in Augusta, Ga., at the time." Quoting from the 
words of a Federal prisoner, in relation to the food 
served the prisoners, of which, in quantity, there 
was no lack, " it was the ordinary diet of the Con- 
federate Army, and they had nothing else to give 
us. . . . The cooks were our own men. . . . 
In reference to the report that Captain Wirz beat 
the prisoners, it was certainly unjust, because his 
right shoulder had been broken." Wirz was assured 
that if he would implicate Jefferson Davis with 
the Andersonville atrocities his sentence would be 
commuted. " To which Wirz replied : ^ I know 
nothing about Jefferson Davis. He had no con- 
nection with me as to what was done at Anderson- 
ville.' " 

Mr. Davis goes on to show that the Confederate 
prisoners in Northern prison-pens were treated quite 
as badly from the same causes, i. e., lack of habitual 
food, over-crowding, the diseases of men crowded 
together, home-sickness, etc., as were Northern 
prisoners at the South. 

EX-PEESIDENT DAVIS. 

On Sunday, April 2, 1865, while President Davis 
was seated quietly in his pew in St. Paul's Church, 
he received official information that General Lee's 
lines before Petersburg had been broken, and that it 
was necessary for the Confederate Government to 



50 «44fi£ ^^ JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

evacuate Richmond. On that night he left the city. 
On April 3d he reached Danville, Ya., where he 
remained until tidings came of the surrender of 
General Lee's army. We next find him at Greens- 
boro', N. C., where he held a consultation with 
Generals Johnston and Beauregard. On the 18th of 
April he arrived at Charlotte, in the same State. 
Here he remained nearly a week, and during his 
stay he received intelligence of the assassination 
of President Lincoln. Concerning the crime he said, 
" I certainly have no special regard for Mr. Lincoln, 
but there are a great many men of whose end I 
would much rather hear than his. I fear it will be 
disastrous to our people, and I regret it deeply." 
Here may be given an extract from Ex-President 
Davis' autobiography from Belford's Magazine : 

" After General Lee was forced to surrender, and 
General Johnston consented to do so, I started, with 
a very few of the men who volunteered to accom- 
pany me, for the trans-Mississippi ; but, hearing on 
the road that marauders were pursuing my family, 
whom I had not seen since they left Richmond, but 
knew to be en route to the Florida coast, I changed 
my direction, and, after a long and hard ride, found 
them encamped and threatened by a robbing party. 
To give them the needed protection 1 traveled with 
them for several days, until in the neighborhood of 
Irvinsville, Ga., when I supposed I could safely 




I— t -n 

q g 



EX-PKESIDENT DAVIS. 51 

leave them. But hearing, about nightfall, that a 
party of marauders were to attack the camp that 
night, and supposing them to be pillaging deserters 
from both armies and that the Confederates would 
listen to me, I awaited their coming, lay down in 
my traveling clothes and fell asleep. Late in the 
night my colored coachman aroused me with the 
intelligence that the camp was attacked, and I 
stepped out of the tent where my wife and children 
were sleeping, and saw at once that the assailants 
were troops deploying around the encampment. I 
so informed my wife, who urged me to escape. 
After some hesitation I consented, and a servant 
woman started with me carrying a bucket, as if 
going to the spring for water. One of the surround- 
ing troops ordered me to halt and demanded my 
surrender. I advanced toward the trooper, throw- 
ing off a shawl which my wife had put over my 
shoulders. The trooper aimed his carbine, when 
my wife, who witnessed the act, rushed forward and 
threw her arms around me, thus defeating my inten- 
tion, which was, if the trooper missed his aim, to 
try and unhorse him and escape with his horse. 
Then, with every species of petty pillage and offen- 
sive exhibition, I was taken from point to point 
until incarcerated in Fortress Monroe. There I was 
imprisoned for two years before being allowed the 
privilege of the writ of habeas corpus^ 



52 LIFE*"^Si^JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

"At length, when the writ was to be issued, the 
condition was imposed by the Federal Executive 
that there should be bondsmen influential in the 
^Republican' party of the North, Mr. Greeley 
being specially named. Entirely as a matter of 
justice and legal right, not from motives of personal 
regard, Mr. Greeley, Mr. Gerrit Smith and other 
eminent Northern citizens went on my bond. 

" In May, 1867, after being released from Fortress 
Monroe, I went to Canada, where my older children 
were, with their grandmother ; my wife, as soon as 
permitted, having shared my imprisonment, and 
brought our infant daughter with her. From time 
to time I obeyed summonses to go before the Federal 
Court at Richmond, until, finally, the case was 
heard by Chief Justice Chase and District Judge 
Underwood, who were divided in opinion, which 
sent the case to the Supreme Court of the United 
States, and the proceedings were quashed, leaving 
me without the opportunity to vindicate myself 
before the highest Federal Court. 

" After about a year s residence in Canada I went 
to England with my family, under an arrangement 
that I was to have sixty days' notice whenever the 
United States Court required my presence. After 
being abroad in England and on the Continent about 
a year I received an offer of an appointment as 
president of a life insurance company. Thereupon 



EX-PKESIDENT DAVIS. 53 

I returned to this country and went to Memphis and 
took charge of the company. Subsequently I came 
to the Gulf Coast of Mississippi, as a quiet place 
where I could prepare my work on ' The Rise and 
^all of the Confederate Government.' A friend 
from her infancy, Mrs. Dorsey, shared her home 
with me, and subsequently sold to me her property 
of Beauvoir, an estate of five or six hundred acres, 
about midway between Mobile and New Orleans. 
Before I had fully paid for this estate Mrs. Dorsey 
died, leaving me her sole legatee. From the spring 
of 1876 to the autumn of 1879 I devoted myself to 
the production of the historical work just men- 
tioned. It is an octavo book in two volumes of 
about seven hundred pages each. I have also from 
time to time contributed essays to the North Ameri- 
can Review and Belford's Magazine, and have just 
completed the manuscript of ^A Short History of 
the Confederate States of America,' which is ex- 
pected to appear early in 1890. 

" Since settling at Beauvoir I have persistently 
refused to take any active part in politics, not 
merely because of my disfranchisement, but from a 
belief that such labors could not be made to conduce 
to the public good, owing to the sectional hostilities 
manifested against me since the war. For the same 
reason I have also refused to be a candidate for pub- 
lic office, although it is well known that I could at 



54 Llf^^iiS JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

any time have been re-elected a Senator of the 
United States. 

^'I have been twice married, the second time 
being in 1844, to a daughter of Wm. B. Howell, 
of Natchez, a son of Governor Howell, of New 
Jersey. She has borne me six children — four sons 
and two daughters. My sons are all dead; my 
daughters survive. The elder is Mrs. Hayes, of 
Colorado Springs, Col., and the mother of four chil- 
dren. My youngest daughter lives with us at Beau- 
voir. Miss. Born in the last year of the war, she 
became familiarly known as Hhe daughter of the 
Confederacy.' " 

A DAY AT BEAUVOIR. 

A day with the ex-President is thus narrated by 
Mr. Sidney Root, a well-known Georgian. It is 
taken from the Atlanta Constitution: 

" On the way to the Southern Forestry Congress, 
in February, 1887, I found I had a day's leisure, 
and it occurred to me to accej)t an often-re23eated 
invitation to visit Mr. Davis at Beauvoir, Miss., a 
railroad station about half-way between Mobile and 
New Orleans. It chanced that I had been on the 
committee which escorted him to Montgomery in 
1861, and our relations became somewhat intimate 
during the war, continuing it without interruption 
until this time. In the afternoon the train left me 



A DAY AT BEAUVOIE. 55 

at the little station, which is also the local post- 
oflfice, the ex-President being the chief patron. A 
young Englishman in the service of Mr. Davis 
politely guided me over the devious country road to 
the family residence, half a mile distant. 

THE BUILDINGS AT BEAUVOIR 

form quite a group, having been built at considera- 
ble cost for a luxurious Southern home. Situated 
on a high bluff of white sand, about a hundred 
yards from the Mexican gulf, blown over by the 
salt sea breeze, it must be a healthy place. The soil 
seems incapable of producing anything but the 
superb live oaks, magnolias and pines, which shade 
the grounds of about fifty acres. All the buildings 
are of wood — one-story and slate-covered — the prin- 
cipal one is quite capacious, containing probably ten 
rooms, with lofty ceilings and all handsomely fres- 
coed. A very wide hall runs through the centre, 
and a broad veranda surrounds the whole. On 
either side, some fifty yards distant, are cottages of 
similar design, in one of which is Mr. Davis' office 
and reference library, his daughter's studio (Miss 
Davis is a fine artist) and a sleeping-room. The 
other cottage is an ^overflow' guest chamber building; 
a cluster of out-houses huddle in the rear. All the 
houses are painted white and show pleasantly under 
the evergreen foliage. Soon after sending in my card 



oQ LIFE T5F JEFFEESON DAVIS. 

THE VENEEABLE EX-PKESIDENT 

greeted me with hearty cordiality, and it was grati- 
fying to notice that this remarkable man still 
retained the dignified bearing, high courtesy and 
gentle manner of the ' old South.' That this man, 
now about eighty, conspicuous in the Black Hawk, 
Seminole and Mexican Wars, Secretary of War under 
Pierce, United States Senator from Mississipi for two 
terms, President of the Confederate States during 
the greatest conflict of modern time, State prisoner 
in a damp casemate of Fortress Monroe for two 
years, could, during all the stress which must have 
pressed upon him, still retain his erect carriage, 
wonderful memory and accurate knowledge of cur- 
rent events, is beyond my comprehension. Drawing 
some restful chairs to the parlor windows, through 
which came the soft gulf breeze, I had the happiness 
of a free conversation with, I think, the greatest 
man I ever knew. Many tender memories of per- 
sonal interest were recalled and many historic points 
discussed. With the exception of John C. Calhoun, 
Mr. Davis is 

THE MOST INTERESTING TALKER 

I ever met. I suppose he is the only man living 
who knows and remembers accurately the inner his- 
tory of the Confederacy. In speaking of the Black 



A DAY AT BEAUVOm. * 57 

Hawk, Seminole and Mexican Wars he related 
many interesting incidents, and mentioned the singu- 
lar fact that all the commanders in the Mexican War 
were from the South, as Scott, of Virginia; Taylor, 
of Louisiana ; Worth, of North Carolina ; Briggs, of 
Georgia ; Pillow, of Tennessee ; Quitman, of Missis- 
sippi, besides, Bragg, Davis, Butler and others who 
held subordinate positions. Quitman, however, was 
born in the North. 

" I asked him who he thought was the greatest 
Confederate commander. After some thought he 
said General Lee, explaining that Albert Sidney 
Johnston was undoubtedly the equal of Lee, but 
having fallen early in the war he had no opportu- 
nity to demonstrate his great capabilities. After 
these two he mentioned Stonewall Jackson, J. E. 
Johnston, Gordon, Longstreet, Stewart, Lees, the Hills 
and many others. I asked him whom he considered 
the greatest Union general. He answered unhesitat- 
ingly — McClellan. Said he was an intense Union 
man, and he respected him as such, but that he fell 
under unjust suspicion at Washington — for political 
reasons — and confusion ensued. When Secretary of 
War, Mr. Davis had sent McClellan to survey the 
Bay of Samana, in St. Domingo, with the hope of 
securing a harbor and coaling station in the West 
Indies for the United States navy. His map and 
report are now on file in Washington. The work 



58 LIfJ^»^ JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

was SO well done that he detailed him to visit St. 
Petersburg to report upon the military establish- 
ments of Russia. In twelve months he submitted 
exhaustive reports, and also translated a technical 
work, which is now in the War office in Washington. 

HE SPOKE KINDLY 

and appreciatively of many Northern generals, say- 
ing General Grant was a good man and a great gen- 
eral, who came to the front with the resources of 
the world at' his back when the Confederacy was 
exhausted ; he also spoke in the most kindly way of 
President Lincoln, who, if his life had been spared, 
would have been of great service to the South and 
the whole country. 

" Mr. Davis inquired if I was in Richmond during 
the Seven Days' Battle. 

" Yes, I was a member of the Southern Baptist 
Convention, and remembered hearing the guns, and 
while we expected the Federal Army any day, there 
was no bitterness manifested, but special prayers 
were offered for the enemy and for the protection of 
the homes and people of the South. 

" I asked Mr. Davis if he remembered our conver- 
sation about a plan for the 

GRADUAL EMANCIPATION OF THE NEGRO. 

"Yes, he recollected every detail. He cordially 
approved of it, and showed the difference between 



MBS. JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

his plan and mine (this was in the autumn of 1864) 
and requested me to ride down to Drury's Bluff and 
confer with General Lee. I did so, and found that 
General Lee heartily approved of the plans. Owing 
to the danger of riding fourteen miles back to Rich- 
mond in the dark, General Lee compelled me to 
sleep in his tent — a very embarrassing position for 
me, because he would make me sleep on his cot, 
while he slept in his blankets on the ground. The 
matter was submitted to Congress in a special mes- 
sage, and the scheme was defeated, chiefly through 
Hon. R. M. T. Hunter, of Virginia, on the ground 
that the withdrawal of so many able-bodied slaves 
(40,000 at first), who were to be freed upon joining 
the army, would probably leave the men in the field 
without provisions. It will be remembered that 
Captain Harry Jackson offered to raise a regiment of 
negroes in Georgia to fight for their freedom. I 
spoke of my embarrassment in accepting General 
Lee's hospitality. He said Lee was right, as it 
would have been hazardous to return to Richmond 
after dark, and mentioned two amusing instances of 
his being arrested while inspecting the lines near 
Richmond. 

MRS. JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

" Mrs. Davis is of Welsh extraction — a Howell, a 
granddaughter of Governor Howell, of New Jersey, 
who was a fast friend of Washington. She was 



60 LI?^F JEFFEESON DAVIS. 

born in Yicksburg about 1826, the daughter of a 
large planter in the famous Yazoo bottoms. Married 
Mr. Davis forty-three years ago ; they settled the 
now celebrated Brierfield plantation — a large island 
in the Mississippi River at Davis Bend, below Yicks- 
burg. The place was so called because of the lux- 
uriant tangle of briers which the rich soil produced. 
There they built a beautiful home and planted the 
magnificent live oaks which are now the pride of 
the neighborhood. Mr. Davis had previously mar- 
ried a daughter of ex-President Zachary Taylor. 
During my visit we again reviewed our plans of '64 
for the gradual emancipation of the negro. I do 
not know what the future historian may say, for the 
history of the Confederacy is yet to be written, but 
I do know that Mr. Davis, General Lee and many 
other prominent people of the South favored it, and 
that a bill was introduced in the Confederate Con- 
gress to that effect. Mr. Davis kindly, in describing 

THE BATTLE OF BUENA VISTA, 

said that when they moved out to meet the enemy 
they were uncertain about his numbers or position. 
General Taylor had about 1200 men, and they soon 
ascertained that they were opposed by 8000 of. the 
flower of the Mexican Army, commanded by Santa 
Anna in person. The situation was perilous. Colo- 
nel Davis obtained the consent of General Taylor to 



HIS BIETHPLACE. 61 

lead his Mississippi Eifles through a ravine, thus 
flanking the enemy's position, which led to the con- 
fusion and rout which finally ensued. He said there 
was no ill-feeling between him and General Taylor 
about his first marriage. He married with the gen- 
eral's consent, although the latter could not be pres- 
ent. He mentioned the kindness of ex-President 
Pierce, who visited him during his confinement in 
the fort, and who generously offered him a home for 
life when released. He had a high regard for Mr. 
Pierce ; said he was a very able man, and that his 
was the only administration in the history of the 
country during which there was no change in the 
Cabinet. 

"This unstudied memorandum about friends whom 
I love is written to preserve recollections which 
even in time may become dim in my memory." 

EX-PKESIDENT DAVTS' BIKTH-PLACE. 

In November, 1886, ex-President Davis visited 
Fairview, Ky., — under what circumstances and for 
what object the following from the Kentucky New 
Era will show : 

"Hon. Jefferson Davis left Clarksville, Tenn., 
Saturday evening by special train for Elkton, where 
the party was met by hacks and taken to Mr. W. H. 
Jesup's. He spent the night with Mr. Jesup, and 
attended the dedication, the next day, of Bethel 



62 Em^ 



F JEFFERSON DAVIS. 



Baptist Chiirch. This building is situated upon 
the spot where Mr. Davis was born, and the ground 
was purchased by him last year, and presented to 
the church for the purpose. The structure is one of 
the handsomest in Southern Kentucky, and was 
erected at a cost of over $6000. It is finished in 
elegant style and seated with opera reclining chairs, 
and is provided with pastor's study, baptistery, 
dressing-rooms, and all the modern improvements. 

"A finely-polished slab of violet-hued Tennessee 
marble, set in the wall of the vestibule opposite the 
memorial window, has this inscription in Roman 
capitals : 



JEFFERSON DAVIS, 

OF MISSISSIPPI, WAS BORN JUNE 3, 1808, 

ON THE SITE OF THIS CHURCH. 

HE MADE A GIFT OF THIS LOT MARCH 10, 1886, 

TO BETHEL BAPTIST CHURCH, 

AS A THANK-OFFERING TO THE LORD. 



" At the hour on Sunday morning appointed for 
the service the church was crowded, and the distin- 
guished Mr. Davis entered, leaning upon the arm of 
Mr. Jesup, accompanied by Dr. Strickland, of Nash- 
ville, Tenn., Captain Clark, and two or three ladies 
from Clarksville, Tenn. Dr. Strickland, Dr. Baker 
and the pastor, E. N. Dicken, occupied the pulpit, 



HIS BIKTHPLACE. 63 

and the former proceeded to preaxih the dedicatory 
sermon. It was a discourse eloquent, instructive 
and appropriate, and was listened to with the closest 
attention. At the conclusion of Dr. Strickland's 
discourse Mr. Davis arose and spoke as follows : 

" ' Ladies and Oentlemen of the Congregation : My 
heart is always filled with gratitude to you, who 
extend me so many kindnesses. I am thankful I 
can give you this lot upon which to worship the 
triune God. It has been asked why I, who am not 
a Baptist, give this lot to the Baptist Church. I am 
not a Baptist, but my father, who was a better man 
than I, was a Baptist. 

" ' Wherever I go, when I come here I feel " that 
this is my own, my native land." When I see this 
beautiful church it refills my heart with thanks. It 
shows the love you bear your Creator ; it shows your 
capacity for "building to your God The pioneers of 
this country, as I have learned from history, were 
men of plain, simple habits, full of energy and 
imbued with religious principles. They lived in a 
day before the dawn of sectarian disturbances and 
sectional strife. In their rude surroundings and 
teachings, it is no wonder that they learned that 
God was love. I did not come here to speak. I 
would not mar with speech of mine the efiect of the 
beautiful sermon to which you have listened. I 
simply tender to you, through the trustees of Bethel, 



64 LIFB^jT JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

the site upon which this church stands. May the 
God of heaven bless this community forever, and 
may the Saviour of the world preserve this church 
to his worship for all time to come.' " 

One of the interesting incidents of his life in 
recent years was the appearance of Mr. Davis at 
Bildxi, Miss., January 26, 1885, at the reception 
there of the Liberty Bell, from Philadelphia, on its 
way to the New Orleans Exposition. When the 
bell neared Beauvoir, the residence of Mr. Davis, 
a general desire was expressed to have him join the 
reception party. In response to a speech of welcome 
at the depot, Mr. Davis spoke with all his earlier 
vigor. " The aged statesman grew impassioned, and 
thrilled his audience with his eloquence. He was 
cheered vociferously, and seemed deeply moved." 
It was then that his little granddaughter, five years 
old, kissed the famous " bell that rung out liberty to 
all the land," and patted it with her tiny hand as 
she lisped, " God bless the dear old beU." On the 
29th of April, 1886, Mr. Davis spoke at the laying 
of the corner-stone of a monument to Confederate 
soldiers at Montgomery, Ala., and was received with 
great enthusiasm. Since then he has but seldom 
left his home at Beauvoir. 

Ex-President Davis died in New Orleans on the 
6th day of December, 1889. 

" The handsome residence of Mr. J. U. Payne, at 



THE DEATH CHAMBER ^5 

the corner of First and Camp Streets, is at present 
an object of interest to every friend of Mr. Jeiferson 
Davis, because it is in the pleasant guest-chamberi 
of this elegant home that the beloved old Confeder- 
ate chieftain passed away at fifteen minutes before 
one o'clock this morning. This residence, built by 
Mr. Payne, is one of the most comfortable and 
artistic in all the city. It was of brown-stone 
stucco, two stories high, with broad verandas, and 
set in lovely grounds, where camellia bushes are 
spiked with bloom, and oranges hang in clusters on 
the trees. 

THE DEATH CHAMBER 

" The house has a wide hall running through the 
centre, with drawing-rooms on one side, a library on 
the other, and on the rear corner of the house is a 
lovely and cheery apartment, into which the South- 
ern sun streams nearly all day. 

"It is a wonderfully pretty room, with a rich- 
toned Persian-hued carpet on the floor, shades and 
delicate lace curtains at the four windows — two 
fronting to the east and two to the south. Pictures 
are on the walls, and there are a lounge, easy 
Turkish chairs and pretty carved tables, and a huge 
carved-oak Victoria bedstead, on which the ex-Presi- 
dent of the Confederacy lies in the embrace of death. 
6 



QQ t!Tfi^^F JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

MRS. DAVIS' MINISTRATIONS. 

" His constant attendant hks been Mrs. Davis, who 
has never left his bedside since his illness began. 
In a comfortable home wrapper of gray and black 
this gentle ministrant was always at the invalid's 
side, and if she left him for a moment he asked for 
her, and was fretted or uneasy until she returned. 
Friends constantly sent beautiful flowers, of which 
Mr. Davis was very fond, but these were not allowed 
to remain in the sick room for any length of time. 
At the outset jellies, fruits and all manner of inva- 
lids' delicacies were proffered, until Mrs. Davis was 
compelled to decline them. The sick man's food 
was only milk, ice, beef tea, and rarely a broiled 
chop. 

" Mr. Davis remained in bed all the time, and was 
never left alone, being guarded lovingly by his wife 
and the capable quadroon hired nurse, Lydia, and 
Mrs. Davis' own little brown-eyed handmaiden, 
Betty, who at all times had entree to the sick-room. 
But little talking was allowed, and newspapers, let- 
ters and telegrams were tabooed. 

CLINGING TO HOPE. 

" On Wednesday afternoon a reporter had a few 
moments' conversation with Mrs. Davis. She was 
worn and weary with service at the sick-bed, but 
which she would not allow to any other, and her 



THE DEATH CHAMBER. 67 

step was lagging as she came into the dining-room. 
She was very hopeful, however, of her husband's 
ultimate recovery. 

" ' Mr. Davis has always been an exceedingly tem- 
perate man/ said Mrs. Davis ; ' he has never abused 
his physical powers, and no one could have lived 
more moderately than he. Of course, all this is in 
his favor. I do not mean to say that there would 
be no danger if a door were left open or the fire in 
his room allowed to go out. He is as frail as a lily 
and requires the most attentive care. That he has. 
I believe he would not be alive to-day had his illness 
come upon him at Beauvoir, where he could not 
possibly have had the constant care of such physi- 
cians as Dr. Bickham and Dr. Chaille, and the intel- 
ligent love, tenderness and luxury that surround 
him in this home.' 

THE PATIENT DESPONDENT. 

" From the beginning of his fatal illness Mr. 
Davis had insisted that his case was nearly or quite 
hopeless, though the dread of pain or fear of death 
never appeared to take the slightest hold upon his 
spirits, which were brave, and even buoyant, from 
the beginning of his attack. 

" In vain did the doctors strive to impress upon 
him that his health was improving. He steadily in- 
sisted that there was no improvement, but, with 



68 



LlS^^ftF JEFFERSON DAVIS. 



Christian resignation, he was content to accept what- 
ever Providence had in store for him. Only once 
did he waver in his belief that his case showed no 
improvement, and that was at an early hour yester- 
day morning, when he playfully remarked to Mr. 
Payne, 'I am afraid that I shall be compelled to 
agree with the doctors for once and admit that I am 
a little better.' 

" All day long the favorable symptoms continued, 
and in the afternoon, as late as four o'clock, Mrs. 
Davis sent such a cheering message to Mrs. Stamps 
and Mr. and Mrs. Farrar that they decided, for the 
first time since Mr. Davis has been taken ill, to 
attend the French opera. 

THE FATAL ATTACK. 

" At 6 o'clock last evening, without any assignable 
cause, Mr. Davis was seized with a congestive chill, 
which seemed to absolutely crush the vitality out of 
his already enfeebled body. So weak was Mr. Davis 
that the violence of the assault soon subsided for 
lack of vitality upon which to prey. From that 
moment to the moment of his death the history of 
his case was that of a gradual sinking. At 7 
o'clock Mrs. Davis administered some medicine, but 
the ex-President declined to receive the whole dose. 
She urged upon him the necessity of taking the 



THE DEATH CHAMBEK: 69 

remainder, but, putting it aside with the gentlest of 
gestures, he whispered, ' Pray excuse me/ 

" These were his last words. Gradually he grew 
weaker and weaker, but never for an instant seemed 
to lose consciousness. Lying peacefully upon his 
bed, and without a trace of pain in his look, he 
remained for hours. Silently clasping and ten- 
derly caressing his wife's hand, with undaunted 
Christian spirit he awaited the end. 

"From the moment of the dread assault of the 
congestive chill those gathered around his bedside, 
who had been watching and noting with painful 
interest every change of symptom for the past 
month, knew well that the dread messenger was 
even at the door. About half-past ten o'clock Asso- 
ciate Justice Fenner went to the French Opera 
House to call to Mr. Davis' bedside Mr. and Mrs. 
Farrar and Mrs. Stamps. As soon as the message 
reached them they hurried to the bedside of the 
dying ex-President. 

BREATHED HIS LIFE AWAY. 

" By half-past eleven o'clock there were assembled 
in the death-chamber Mrs. Davis, Drs. Chaille and 
Bickham, Associate Justice and Mrs. Fenner, Miss 
Nannie Smith, grandniece of the dying ex-President, 
and Mr. and Mrs. E. H. Farrar. 

"'^ Finding that Mr. Davis was breathing somewhat 



70 Lfflm^ JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

heavily as he lay upon his back, the doctors assisted 
him to turn upon his right side. With his cheek 
resting upon his right hand, and with his left hand 
drooping across his chest, he lay for some fifteen 
minutes breathing softly, but faintly. More and 
more feeble came his respirations till they passed 
into silence, and then the watchers knew that the 
silver cord had been loosed and the golden bowl 
broken. The father of the Confederacy had passed 
away, 

*' * As calmly as to a night's repose, 
Or flowers at set of sun.' 

A CRUSHING BLOW. 

^^ Despite the fact that the end had come slowly 
and peacefully, and after she had been face to face 
for hours with the dread reality, the blow fell with 
crushing force upon the afflicted widow. As long as 
there had been work for either head or hands she 
had borne up bravely, and not until the sweet uses 
for her tender ministrations were lost did she seem 
to realize the terrible force of the blow that had 
fallen upon her. 

" Knowing of a predisposition to heart affection, 
the doctors were at once gravely alarmed for her. 
They promptly administered a composing draught, 
and at a late hour she was resting quietly. 



THE DEATH CHAMBER. 71 

CAUSE OF DEATH. 

" It is believed that the foundation of the ex- Pres- 
ident's last illness was malaria, complicated with 
acute bronchitis. Careful nursing and skilled med- 
ical attention had mastered the latter, but it is sup- 
posed that the congestive chill, which was the im- 
mediate cause of death, was attributable to a return 
of the malaria. 

"After death the face of the deceased, though 
looking slightly emaciated, showed no trace of suf- 
fering, more nearly resembling that of a peaceful 
sleeper than of the dead. 

THE EVENT ANNOUNCED. 

" When the family had partially recovered from 
the terrible shock, Mr. Farrar went to the Western 
Union Telegraph office and sent dispatches to Miss 
Winnie Davis, who is in Paris, with Mrs. Pulitzer ; 
to Mr. Davis' son-in-law, in Colorado Springs, and 
also notified Governor Lowry, of Mississippi, as he 
deemed it but right that the executive of that State 
should know of the death of one of its most distin- 
guished sons." 

" Notwithstanding the early hour at which Mr. 
Davis died, it was decided by Mr. Farrar, Judge 
Fenner and Mr. Payne to inform Mayor Shakspeare 
that President Davis had passed away. 



72 LIFB^if JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

^^A written communication of the facts was di- 
rected to him and delivered at 3.05 a.m. Mayor 
Shakspeare visibly showed his emotion at the con- 
tents of the letter. He hastily clothed himself and 
immediately walked to the residence. The chilly 
fog hung low in dense masses, and faintly defined 
by the electric lights, familiar shapes along the 
streets fell in distorted shado^vs. The house was 
shrouded in darkness and intense silence. From 
the trees surrounding the approaches to the dwell- 
ing great drops of condensed fog fell with a softly 
deadened sound upon the earth. 

" Mr. Farrar and Mr. Payne received the Mayor 
in the hallway, and the three rapidly entered the 
back parlor or dining-room. The Mayor's proclar 
mation was quickly sketched out that it might be 
published in the morning. The Times-Democrat had 
held its issue back that the Mayor's notification 
might be given publicity. At 4.10 the proclamation 
was handed a Times-Democrat reporter and was pub- 
lished in yesterday's issue. 

" While the proclamation was being written out, 
Mr. Payne paced the room with hands folded behind 
him, or restlessly sought an arm-chair to look stead- 
fastly ahead of him at the writers. 

'' The house then sank into 

AN AWED SILENCE, 

save the occasional closing of some far-off door, and 



THE DEATH CHAMBER 73 

the final closing of the great hall door behind the 
undertaker. * 

"A heavy piece of black crape was adjusted to 
the bell knob as Mr. Johnson entered the house. 
The token was sufficient information, and no line 
was written to convey that death had paused during 
the midnight hours in one of the silent rooms. The 
drip, drip of the fog was the only audible sound 
down the long streets. It had come in darker than 
midnight and hung in gloomy clouds overhead, as if 
a deluge of rain was imminent. Some laborers with 
dinner pans and overalls, wrapped in red handker- 
chiefs, were the first to see the crape hanging near 
the door. Conversation, which had not been loud 
in tone, was arrested immediately, and they reached 
out their hands and felt the fabric without speaking. 
They passed on, maintaining silence. 

"Four patrolmen returning from their night's 
duties saw the emblem and- crossed the lower corner 
of Camp and First streets. They, too, were si- 
lenced. So dark was the street at this time that 
the lights of a private cab were barely distinguish- 
able as it stood at the adjoining house. At day- 
break the foot passengers passing near the residence 
elevated their hats and passed the grounds and 
house with heads uncovered. 

" The sun was at last of sufficient force to dissi- 
pate the fog, and while as yet the house was not 



74 ES^OF JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

astir many ladies began to call as early as 8.10. 
Callers were frequent from that time on. Many 
of these 

BROUGHT CUT FLOWERS 

and several offerings were in large and expensive 
designs. 

" Callers were invariably denied admittance unless 
closely connected or intimate friends of the bereaved 
family. Mrs. Davis denied audience, at the solicitor 
tions of the family, as often as practicable. Her 
bereavement was prostrating her, and her friends 
feared she would overtax her strength. 

" By 5.30 o'clock the funeral directors had com- 
pleted embalming the remains of the dead chieftain, 
and he was dressed in his suit of Confederate gray, 
the suit that he had on when he was removed from 
the steamboat ' Leathers ' to the home of Associate 
Justice Fenner. The body was then laid out in the 
death-chamber, and Mrs. Davis came in and took 
her seat beside it. In conversation with members 
of the household she expressed the desire to be 
alone with the dead during the day. Her friends 
tried to impress upon her that she was overtaxing 
herself, but she insisted, and they gave way. 

"It was then announced that no one would be 
permitted to intrude upon Mrs. Davis, and with 
very few exceptions no one was permitted to enter 
the room. 



HIS BODY-SERVANT. 75 

" This rule was first violated at Mrs. Davis' 
request to admit an old negro who had years ago 
been 

MR. DAVIS' BODY-SERVANT. 

" As a result of his gracious dignity, Mr. Davis 
never came in contact with a menial but that at once 
they grew devotedly attached to him. More than once 
have family and friends quizzed him regarding the 
absorbing love of the porters, servants and slaves 
that accident threw in his way. Never was a man 
more loved by those who served him, and this was 
peculiarly noticeable among the negroes he owned 
before the war. One of the most affecting incidents 
connected with the death, was the arrival and grief 
of this old darky, a former slave of Mr. Davis' 
brother, the late Joe Davis. 

" For a number of years Miles Cooper, a decrepit 
colored man, has sent from his present home in 
Florida little tokens in the way of fruits raised by 
his own hands for the hospitable Beauvoir table. 
Through the local press Miles heard of Mr. Davis' 
extreme illness, and, putting every personal interest 
and comfort aside, hastened to see the master he 
loved. Unused to traveling, aged and uncertain in 
his movements, the unselfish servant again and 
again missed connection in the short trip, was de- 
layed, left behind and put to every possible annoy- 
ance and inconvenience. Finally he arrived, and. 



76 T5fBi^0F JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

full of pleasant anticipations, hurried up to look 
once more in those kindly eyes and feel the cordial 
grasp of that genial hand. Reaching the residence, 
all stilled as it was and surrounded by an atmos- 
phere of death, the servant learned of Mr. Davis' 
dea,th the night previous. It was 

MORE THAN HE COULD BEAR, 

and breaking down with an outburst of deep grief. 
Miles sat crushed and hopeless, onJy asking the one 
favor to be admitted to the presence of his master. 
Every one, save the family, had been denied 
entrance, but Mr. Farrar, at Mrs. Davis' request, 
led the way, and soon the ex-slave stood face to face 
with the noble dead. It was pitiful to hear the sobs 
and wails of the old darky. He mourned with 
unaffected grief for the ' Mars Jeff' of his youth, 
and prayed earnestly for the welfare of those he left 
behind. 

" Betty, a little maid who has been in Mrs. Davis' 
employ, said to a reporter : ' You are writing a good 
deal about Mr. Davis, but he deserves it all. He 
was good to me and the best friend I ever had. 
After my mother died and I went to live with Mr. 
and Mrs. Davis, at Beauvoir, he treated me like one 
of his own family. He would not allow any one to 
say anything to wound the feelings of a servant.' 

"At 4.15 P.M., Sister Mary Baptiste and Sister 



A TRIBUTE OF EESPECT 77 

Mary Patreneliaj of St. Alphonsus Convent, with a 
number of young female orphans, begged admittance 
that they might be able to offer their 

PRAYERS FOR THE DECEASED. 

Mrs. Davis retired from the room and the Sisters 
and children knelt by the bier upon which rested 
the body of the dead statesman. It was clad in 
plain gray uniform, with black cloth-covered buttons. 
At his head and resting their tips slightly on each 
shoulder were two palm leaves, such as marked the 
caskets of the Christian dead in ages past, to signify 
that the spirit had been victorious over the body. 

" In the angle of the leaf stems was a sheaf of 
wheat harvested at its fruition. Flanking this was a 
pillow of roses. Above, the lowered flame of 
a gas jet flamed faintly. The young faces, unscarred 
in the world's battles, shone out in strong contrast 
to that of him whose spirit had so recently gone 
down into the valley. From the not tightly closed 
upper lattice of the window the light of the blue 
evening sky 

TOUCHED THE FEATURES OF THE DEAD 

with an azure tint and traced the delicate profile 
lines of the face. Assembled in the room during the 
devotional exercises were members of the household 
of subordinate position. The appeals and responses 



78 EH^^F JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

rose and melted over the mute frame enwrapped in 
the cloth of his corpse. After the conclusion of the 
ceremonies the Sisters and orphans immediately 
withdrew. 

THE CASKET. 

"At 7.05 p. M., the closed hearse containing the 
casket drew up at the front gate. It was soon taken 
within the house, and those gentlemen who were 
within the rooms assembled on the front gallery. 
Attracted by the dark conveyance, with its white 
horse, the loiterers, the curious and not a few who 
designed visiting the house began to occupy the 
sidewalks. Early in the day the family had 
expressed the hope that the removal of Mr. Davis' 
remains to the City Hall should be unostentatious and 
with most marked quietude. Seeing the vehicle 
was collecting the crowd, the undertaker, after per- 
forming his duty to the body, had it driven away to 
return at a later time to carry the corpse to the City 
Hall. This caused the crowd to disperse, and the 
streets were comparatively deserted at 9.50 P. m." 

ARRANGING FOR THE FUNERAL. 

" Many churches held memorial services in honor 
of Jefferson Davis, principally the Protestant 
Episcopal, Catholic, Methodist and Presbyterian. 
Bishop Keener, of the Methodist Church, related 
anecdotes of the deceased, especially as a visitor to 



ARRANGING FOR THE FUNERAL. 79 

the annual seashore camp-meeting. Bishop Galle- 
her, of the Protestant Episcopal Church, who was 
in charge of the funeral, did not preach any ser- 
mon. Bishop Hugh Miller Thompson, of Missis- 
sippi, assisted him, and Rev. Ebenezer Thompson, 
of Biloxi, Miss, who was Mr. Davis' pastor, also 
take a prominent part. Dr. Markham, Presbyterian, 
Father Hubert, Catholic, and Drs. Bakewell and 
Martin, Protestant Episcopal, who were all Con- 
federate chaplains, assisted Bishop Galleher. Dr. 
Bakewell was sergeant of a company and Bishop 
Galleher himself carried a musket. It was the 
Bishop's intention to have the services take place on 
the broad portico of the City Hall. Lafayette 
Square stretches out in front and many people could 
then witness the rites. A surpliced choir sang 
the anthem, " Though I walk through the valley of 
the shadow of death," by Sir Arthur Sullivan. At 
the tomb the same choir chanted " Rock of Ages." 
The body was taken to the cemetery, a distance 
of about three miles, on a caisson, and the vast pro- 
cession walked all the way. The parade was of 
immense proportions. Even the benevolent soci- 
eties turned out. The sombre drapery of mourn- 
ing spread over the city. The shipping dipped its 
flags, the British steamships especially putting their 
flags at half-mast. 

The full programme of parade was decided upon 



80 nW^F JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

by Gen. John M. Lynn, the grand marshal. The 
selection of pall-bearers was left to Mrs. Davis. 

Mr. J. U. Payne, a prominent cotton factor and 
life-long friend of Mr. Davis was one, and the 
Grand Army Confederate Veterans and the Gov- 
ernors of other States were represented beside the 
casket. The Army of Northern Virginia and Army 
of Tennessee Veterans marched side by side just 
behind the caisson bearing the remains of their 
lamented chief. 

The remains of Mr. Davis lay in state in the 
council chamber of the City Hall. At midnight 
Friday they were carried from the Payne mansion 
to the City Hall. The cortege consisted of the 
hearse and two carriages. One of the latter was 
filled with flowers, and the other was occupied by 
six personal friends of the deceased. The casket 
was placed upon a catafalque draped in plain black. 
The coffin was covered with black plush, edged with 
broad black braid. The handles along the sides con- 
sisted of a single square bar of silver, and across each 
end was a short bar of gold. The top of the casket 
was covered with one sheet of heavy French plate 
glass, which extended its entire length, and rested 
on the thick copper lining. 

All day long there was a ceaseless stream of 
people viewing the remains of Jefferson Davis. 
Floral offerings have poured in, and the coffin 



. AERANGING FOR THE FUNERAL. 81 

looked as if placed at the base of a bank of flowers. 
The Army of Tennessee lead with a design ten 
feet high, one of the handsomest floral oflerings 
ever made here. 

When the doors opened at 10 o'clock fully three 
thousand people were waiting to enter. The crowd 
was so great that the people were allowed to pass 
the bier in double instead of single column, and over 
three thousand eight hundred people passed every 
hour. The total was fully forty thousand in one 
day. The body will remain exposed until the last 
minute. 

A silver plate on the casket bears the inscrip- 
tion, " Jeflerson Davis at Rest." 

" Badges of the Confederate associations, the flag 
of the Washington Artillery carried through the 
war, and a bunch of wheat and pair of crossed 
Spanish daggers, as the plant is termed, fastened 
together with purple ribbon, were the only other 
ornaments. The desks of the mayor and clerks 
were covered over and tamed into a platform, 
which was the receptacle for floral offerings. The 
room was lit up by clusters of electric lights, their 
brilliancy being dimmed by the sable drapery. Sol- 
diers in uniform stood guard, stacks of arms and 
cannon filled the corners of the chamber, and all 
around the walls were rows of plants ^nd shrubbery, 

forming a beautiful contrast. 
6 



82 LIFEDF JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

During the early morning people poured in to 
obtain a last look at the dead — fifteen hundred 
people passing each hour. The visitors were filed 
through the room in regular column. All classes 
were represented in the procession by the bier. The 
number of colored people was marked. 

FUNERAL. 

By universal request Mr. Jefferson Davis was 
given a funeral in full accord with his superior rank 
as a military officer, in addition to which, numerous 
civic and other organizations combined to render 
the cortege in all respects most imposing, not 
only with reference to numbers, but in the pomp 
and circumstance of its elaborate ceremonial. Be- 
sides the veterans of the lost cause, who have once 
again been called upon to close up their decimated 
ranks, were many gallant soldiers whose unflinching 
valor, displayed on numerous hotly-contested fields, 
resulted not unfrequently in both glory and victory 
to ' the stars and stripes.' 

SCENE AT THE CITY HALL. 

At 11.30 o'clock the funeral ceremonies were to 
be commenced, but long previous to that time the 
great square immediately fronting the City Hall had 
become an unwieldy mass of eager, sympathetic 
humanity. According to programme the square 



THE PALL-BEARERS. 83 

proper was to be reserved exclusively for the mili- 
tary. In the enforcement of this injunction, however, 
the large, but by no means adequate, police force on 
duty, experienced innumerable obstacles, and it was 
with the greatest difficulty that the swaying multi- 
tude was kept beyond the prescribed environments. 
The streets, banquettes and every available place 
from which either an unobstructed or partial view 
could be had of the portico of the municipal build- 
ing, were crowded almost to suffocation. During all 
this time the air was laden with funeral dirges, the 
solemn requiem of the bells was heard on every 
hand, and louder and deeper were the sounds of 
minute guns that at intervals thundered forth their 
deep-mouthed tribute to the illustrious dead. 

THE PALL-BEARERS. 

The following gentlemen acted as pall-bearers : 
Honorary Pall-hearers — Governor Francis T. 

Nicholls, of Louisiana; Governor Robert Lowry, of 

Mississippi ; Governor S. B. Buckner, of Kentucky ; 

Governor John B. Gordon, of Georgia; Governor J. 

S. Richardson, of South Carolina; Governor D. G. 

Fowle, of North Carolina ; Governor F. P. Fleming, 

of Florida; Governor James P. Eagle, of Arkansas. 
These gentlemen represent the Southern States 

pall-bearers — General George W. Jones, of Iowa; 

Hon. Charles E. Fenner, of Louisiana ; Mr. Sawyer 



84 LIf5^ JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

Hayward, of Mississippi; Hon. Thomas H. Watts, 
of Alabama, a member of President Davis' cabinet. 

APPEARANCE OF THE REMAINS. 

The body, notwithstanding the very warm and 
exceptionally oppressive weather of the past week, 
was remarkably well-preserved. The countenance 
presented an expression of 'rapturous repose,' and 
in no wise had ' decay's defacing fingers ' yet blotted 
out, much less tarnished in the remotest degree, the 
noble lines of a face strikingly attractive when 
lighted by the fire of genius, as it was woiit to be. 
Indeed the Confederacy's beloved chieftain, as he 
reposed in his coffin this morning, presented just 
such a picture as those who knew and loved him in 
life would like best to cherish in their memory. 

At 12.10 the casket was conveyed from the 
memorial room to an improvised catafalque in the 
centre of the front portico, where massive pillars 
were entwined with -a profusion of crape. Over the 
casket was thrown the soft folds of a silken flag of 
the lost cause, as also the glittering sabre with 
which the dead soldier had carved fame and honor 
for himself, and glory and victory for his country, 
on the crimson fields of Chapultepec and Monterey. 
Immediately surrounding the coffin were the clergy 
and the armed sentries, they being the only persons 
admitted to a place on the portico during the service. 



BISHOP GALLEHER'S ADDRESS. 85 

The relatives of the deceased were assigned to seats 
in the mayor's parlor, from the windows of which 
they were enabled to witness the ceremonies. 

THE SERVICES. 

The obsequies, which were according to the ritual 
of the Episcopal Church, were conducted by Bishop 
Galleher, assisted by five ofiiciating clergymen of 
various denominations, as follows : Father Hubert, 
Eev. Mr. Thompson, Mr. Davis' rector at Biloxi, 
Miss. ; Rev. Dr. Markham, Rev. Mr. Bakewell and 
Rev. Mr. Martin. 

There were altogether fully twenty surpliced min- 
isters, besides the attendance of numerous clergy of 
different denominations from the various Southern 
States. A surpliced choir of thirty-six voices, 
accompanied by the organ, sang the anthem, 
' Through the Valley of the Shadow of Death.' 

BISHOP GALLEHER'S ADDRESS. 

" Bishop Galleher made an address. He said : 
^When we utter our prayers to-day for those who 
are distressed in mind, when we lift our petitions to 
the Most Merciful and ask a benediction on the des- 
olate, we remember that one household above others 
is bitterly bereaved and that hearts closely knitted 
to our own are deeply distressed ; for the master of 
Beauvoir lies dead under the drooping flag of the 
saddened city; the light of his dwelling has gone 



g6 LTPI^F JEFFEKSON DAVIS. 

out and left it lonely for all days to come. Surely 
we grieve with those who weep the tender tears of 
homely pain and trouble, and there is not a sign of 
the gulf breeze that swings the swinging moss on 
the cypress trees sheltering their home but finds an 
answer in our own burdened breathing. We recall 
with sweet sympathy the wifely woe that can be 
measured only by the sacred depths of wifely devo- 
tion, and our hearts go traveling across the heaving 
Atlantic seas to meet and to comfort, if we might, 
the child who, coming home, shall for once not be 
able to bring all the sweet splendors of the sunshine 
with her. Let us bend v/ith the stricken household 
and pay the tribute of our tears; and then, ac- 
knowledging the stress and surge of a people's sor- 
row, say that the stately tree of our Southern wood, 
planted in power, nourished in kindly dews, branch- 
ing in brave luxuriance and scarred by many storms, 
lies uprooted. The end of a long and lofty life has 
come, and a moving volume of human history has 
been closed and clasped. The strange and sudden 
dignity of death has been added to the fine and res- 
olute dignity of living. A man who in his person 
and history symbolized the solemn convictions and 
tragic fortunes of millions of men cannot pass into 
the gloom that gathers around a grave without sign 
or token from the surcharged bosoms of those he 
leaves behind, and when Jefierson Davis, reaching 



BISHOP GALLEHER'S ADDRESS. 87 

Hhe very seamark of his utmost sail/ goes to his 
God, not even the most ignoble can chide the majes- 
tic mourning, the sorrowing honors of a last ^salute.' 
" ^ I am not here to stir by a breath the embers of 
a settled strife ; to speak one word unworthy of him 
and of the hour ; what is writ is writ in the world's 
memory and in the books of God. But I am here 
to say for our help and inspiration that this man, as 
a Christian and a churchman, was a lover of all 
high and righteous things ; as a citizen, was fash- 
ioned in the old, faithful type ; as a soldier, was 
marked and fitted for more than fame — the Lord 
God having set on him the seal of the liberty of men. 
Gracious and gentle, even to the lowliest, nay, espe- 
cially to them ; tender as he was brave, he deserved 
to win all the love that followed him. Fearless and 
unselfish, he could not well escape the lifelong con- 
flict to which he was committed. Greatly and 
strangely misconceived, he bore injustice with the 
calmness befitting his place. He suffered many and 
grievous wrongs, sufiered most for the sake of others, 
and those others will remember him and his un- 
flinching fidelity with deepening gratitude while the 
Potomac seeks the Chesapeake or the Mississippi 
sweeps by Brierfield on its way to the Mexican sea. 
When on the December midnight the worn warrior 
joined the ranks of the patient and prevailing ones 
who — 



88 I45EOF JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

' " Loved their land with love far brought, 

If one of the mighty dead gave the challenge : 
Art thou of us? 

He answered : * I am here.' " ' 

EEVERENTIAL SILENCE. 

Following Bishop Galleher, the Kev. Dr. Mark- 
ham read the lesson, while the Rev. Mr. Martin re- 
peated a Psalm, the Eev. Mr. Bakewell the versicles, 
and the Rev. Thompson the Creed, and thus ended 
the services at the City Hall, which, although sim- 
ple and brief, were wonderfully impressive. 

During this period the immense throng, repre- 
senting every conceivable variety of religious and 
social predilection, profession and nationality, stood 
in reverential silence and with heads uncovered. A 
deep silence pervaded the vast assembly and the 
emotions experienced by all were deep and unutter- 
able. 

THE PROCESSION. 

At the conclusion of the religious services the 
casket was borne by a detachment of soldiers to the 
handsomely decorated caisson which had been espe- 
cially prepared for its reception, and on which it was 
to be conveyed to the cemetery. From the caisson 
arose a catafalque consisting of a unique and beau- 
tifully designed canopy, measuring from base to 
dome eight feet in length and four in width, and 
supported by six bronze cannon, craped in between 



THE PROCESSION. 89 

With muskets. The dome of the canopy was orna- 
mented in bronze, with furled United States flags 
craped upon either side. The sides of the catafalque 
were superbly draped in black cloth with bullion 
fringes and gimp. The casket rested on a slight ele- 
vation and the caisson was drawn by six black horses, 
two abreast, caparisoned in artillery harness and 
plumes, and each animal led by a soldier in uni- 
form. 

With marvelous military precision the various 
seemingly unwieldy battalions wheeled into line, 
preceded by a detachment of the city police, and 
followed in turn by the clergy, pall-bearers, and so 
on in their respective order until the mammoth pro- 
cession was formed. 

The procession, after leaving the City Hall, pro- 
ceeded up St. Charles Street to Calliope, and from 
Calliope moved into Camp, thence to Chartres, to 
St. Louis, to Royal, and thence on Canal in a direct 
route to the cemetery. 

It was an hour and ten minutes passing a given 
point. 

. TOLLING BELLS. 

As the grand funeral cortege traversed the 
streets, from the turrets o^ every church a bell was 
tolled. The clank of sabres and the tramp of iron- 
shod feet echoed along the interminable line, while 
soul-subduing dirges blended with the solemn boom- 



90 LTPS4Jf JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

ing of the minute-guns. Parts of the city not di- 
rectly located in the line of march or in any way 
remote from the scene of the pageant were literally 
depopulated, their inhabitants having gathered in 
countless numbers on the banquettes and in other 
available places from which an easy view of the 
marching columns could be had. 

AT THE CEMETERY. 

The entry of the pageant into the beautiful 
cemetery away out on the quiet Metairie Ridge, far 
from the thunder and clatter and turmoil of the 
busy, rushing, work-a-day city life, was made with 
all the pomp and circumstance of a military and 
civic procession. 

Even before noon, when the religious ceremonies 
were just beginning, people gathered within the 
hallowed precincts of the romantic burying ground. 
They came in street cars, in trains, in carriages,, in 
vehicles of every known description and on foot, 
and took up a position on the tombs and broad 
walks and on the scrupulously well-kept lawn. 

Metairie is the prettiest cemetery in the South. 
It ranks in beauty with the handsomest burial- 
grounds of the world. It is situated about two 
miles and a half from the business part of the city, 
and is rich in its architecture, its verdure and its 
possessions. Years ago it was the famous race- 



AT THE CEMETERY. 91 

course of the South. Some years back it was trans- 
formed into a city of the dead. Since then nature 
and man have constantly aided in its adornment. 
Within it lie the remains of thousands of Confeder- 
ate veterans, and here are most of the tombs of the 
military a.nd veteran associations of New Orleans. 

It is in this cemetery, in a subterranean vault, 
that the Southern chieftain has been temporarily 
laid to rest. The Army of Northern Virginia tomb 
is beneath the marble monument of the lamented 
Confederate leader, Stonewall Jackson. It is situ- 
ated nearly half a mile from the stone entrance, 
nearly in the centre of the cemetery, and surrounded 
by imposing tombs of wealthy people of New Orleans. 
The mound is of gradual ascent, prettily laid out in 
parterres and richly grown with rare flowers. From 
a sectional stone base a slender shaft, broken with 
laurel wreaths, rises to commanding heights. At its 
apex a heavy slab of marble bears the statue of 
Jackson. The figure represents the famous general 
in an attitude of repose, his sword -leaning on a 
broken stone wall, and his left hand resting grace- 
fully on his side. He wears the regular Confederate 
officers' uniform, with his cloak thrown over his arm 
and his field-glasses held carelessly in his left hand. 
The familiar kepi is pulled down, as the general was 
wont to wear it, closely over his forehead. The 
face looks toward the southeast, and the features are 



92 LI?S^ JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

almost perfect in their outline. Beneath the base is 
an underground chamber with vaults running all 
around it. It was in one of these that the remains 
of Mr. Davis were placed. 

The monument was decorated with extreme 
simplicity. The mound was covered entirely with 
green moss, and around the shaft was wound a chain 
of laurel and oak leaves. The decorations were the 
work of Mr. J. H. Menard. When the procession 
left the City Hall big furniture wagons drove up, 
and the mortuary chamber was emptied of its hun- 
dreds of floral offerings that came from every city 
and State in the South, and they were taken out to 
the cemetery. Here an artistic hand came into 
play, and the flowers were arranged with studied 
unostentation and most admirable effect, the mound 
being almost entirely hidden from view by the 
wealth of culture flowers. 

THE FINAL CEREMONIES. 

When the* progress of the procession finally 
brought the militia to the monument, the police 
and soldiers were drawn up all around the circle, 
and as the funeral car, with its long line of carriages 
in the wake, drew up, the line of soldiers facing the 
monument were given right-about orders, in order to 
salute the bier. It was then four o'clock. The 
choristers had preceded the funeral, and took up 



THE FINAL CEKEMONIES. 93 

position in a group to the left of the tomb. Then 
the Episcopal clergymen and the assisting clergy of 
other denominations, formed in a line on either side 
of the walk. The pall-bearers and distinguished 
guests did the same thing. Bishops Galleher and 
Hugh Miller Thompson walked slowly up to the 
base and. took up their positions beside the bier. 
General Gordon came up shortly and stood quietly 
and modestly, with bowed head, close by. 

The caisson stopped at the foot of the walk, and 
Battery B's detail of honor bore the casket up the 
ascent to the foot of the monument, with Captain 
Beanham at its head. As the coffin was carried up 
the mound, the military orders were ^ Rest on arms,' 
and every soldier in the circle executed the order. 
The veteran associations marched into the cemetery 
together. When they reached the monument they 
parted, one going to the left, the other to the right. 
When they met they charged up the mound and 
formed an inner circle, the Army of Northern Vir- 
ginia in front and the Army of Tennessee in the 
rear. Then the ladies and gentlemen of the family 
trod slowly up the mound. Mrs. Davis, heavily 
draped, leaned on the arm of the life-long friend of 
her husband, Mr. J. U. Payne, as she came up 
beside the bier. Mrs. Hayes came up on the arm of 
General Joseph R. Davis, a nephew of the dead 
President. Behind these came the faithful negro 



94 LIFE^J^ JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

body-servant of Mr. Davis, Robert Brown. Mrs. 
Stamps was escorted by Mr. Farrar. Then followed 
other members of the family. • Associate-Justice 
Fenner and his family came next, and immediate 
friends of Mr. and Mrs. Davis gathered around just 
as Bishop Thompson opened the ceremonies by 
reading the first portion of the Episcopal burial 
service. Then T. H. Sappington, of Company B, 
19th Infantry, stationed at Mt. Vernon barrack, 
Ala., sounded the bugle call of " Taps." Bishop Gal- 
leher read the second portion of the ritual consign- 
ing the body to the grave. Here are his extempo- 
raneous words : " In the name of God, Amen. "We 
here consign the body of Jefferson Davis, a servant 
of his State and country, and a soldier in their 
armies ; some time member of Congress and Senator 
from Mississippi, and Secretary of War of the United 
States ; the first and only President of the Confede- 
rate States of America ; born in Kentucky on the 
3d of June, 1808, died in Louisiana on the 6th of 
December, 1889, and buried here by the reverent 
hands of his people." 

An anthem by W. H. Walter, part of the burial 
service. Was sung by the choristers to a cornet 
accompaniment. Bishop Thompson recited the Lord's 
Prayer, in which the choir, the clergy and the gene- 
ral public joined, and then the hymn " Rock of Ages " 
was rendered, and the religious services were over. 



IN THE TOMB. 95 

IN THE TOMB. 

Bishop Galleher waved his hand as the signal 
of the closing. Captain Beanham gave the military 
command, the casket was raised from its bier, and 
the soldiers bearing it on their shoulders marched 
around the circular mound to the open doorway at 
the back of the monument leading to the stairway 
that reaches the subterranean chamber of the dead. 
The family took up its line in the order of its ascent 
of the mound, friends following. The Ladies' Memo- 
rial Association fell in, and Governor Nicholls and the 
other Governors joined in with the other pall-bearers. 
When the members of the family had descended, the 
casket was placed in the middle vault of the first 
perpendicular row, immediately on the right as you 
go down. The Confederate flag in which the cofiin 
had been wrapped was removed, the slab was 
screwed tight, and the dead soldier had found his 
temporary resting place in the Army of Northern 
Virginia tomb. 

As the family descended an artillery detachment 
from the State Guard, Captain Beanham's Battery, 
fired three rounds, and the military funeral was 
over. 

There were placed before the vault three floral 
offerings — one a design of a chair, from the Lee 
Memorial Association; another, " Gates Ajar/' from 



96 



LIF5>lkJEFFERS0N DAVIS. 



Mr. P. F. Alba, of Mobile, and the third, a cross of 
flowers, from the Girls' High School. 

As Mr. Payne and Mrs. Davis, both weeping, 
and the other relatives and close friends came up 
from the chamber and passed down to the carriages 
the troops presented arms. Then the Governors, 
the pall-bearers, guests from other States, the Ladies' 
Memorial Association, and finally the public, 
crowded down into the still, cold, whitewashed room 
below, and gazed a moment on the narrow chamber 
wherein all that was mortal of the beloved Southern 
chieftain was lying in peace and quiet, removed for- 
ever from its sphere in life. A police guard of honor 
will be on duty at the tomb. 

Ex-President Davis' funeral occurred in New Or- 
leans on Wednesday, December 11, 1889. The 
occasion is thus editorially described by the Times- 
Democrat of that city : 

Magnificent in its immensity and sublime in its 
sadness was the mournful cortege that yesterday 
bore to the tomb all that was mortal of Jefferson 
Davis. 

As the long line of sorrow-stricken faces slowly 
moved through the streets, the minds of the old 
time soldiers seemed to wander back to the days 
when the Cause that enwrapped the Southern heart 
was not lost, and victory held her hands outstretched 
to the valiant hosts of the Confederacy. 



IN THE TOMB. 97 

It was a grand, an imposing, a historic funeral 
pageant. No man now living will look upon its like 
again. It is the snapping of the last great human 
link in the chain that binds the memory of the 
South to the volcanic past. Jefferson Davis rests 
to-day in the grave to which Providence in its 
wisdom consigned him, rich in honors, ripe in the 
love of his people, enshrined in the affection of all 
who treasure that liberty which comes from God on 
high. 

Many millions of people buried yesterday their 
best beloved. And yet in the eyes of the law he 
was not one of them. A man without a country, 
living under a government that knew him not, soli- 
tary and alone in his unique grandeur, the hero of 
the Lost Cause, Kossuth-like, refused to bend the 
pregnant hinges of the knee that civic glory and 
power and greatness might wait upon him. Jeffer- 
son Davis lived and moved and had his being, not 
upon the stage of men's affairs, but within the 
recesses, of the human heart — the great common 
heart of the South. There, in the warm embrace of 
his own people, he passed the closing days of his 
well-spent life, and there he died. No death could 
so well befit so great a man ! 

Great in its numbers, the mournful procession 
that yesterday bore Jefferson Davis to the grave was 
greater still in the loftiness of its character, its ripe 



93 Llfn^^ JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

wisdom and its civic fame and virtue. Men illus- 
trious in every walk of life were there. Prelates 
eminent and eloquent; statesmen with popular 
honors heaped full measure upon them; learned 
jurists, rich in knowledge; representatives of nations 
great and powerful abroad ; the veterans who wore 
the gray ; the men who wore the blue ; the mystic 
brotherhoods ; civil, religious and benevolent organ- 
izations; our colleges and schools; the fire boys — 
all moved with solemn tread to the beautiful city of 
the dead where rests this morning the body of the 
hero of the Lost Cause. 

It was a spectacle grandly sad, mournfully elo- 
quent — the burial of Jefferson Davis. In the cold 
embrace of earth lies now the South's greatest, 
noblest, best." 

The solemn and imposing pageant won uni- 
versal commendation for the splendid simplicity 
of its ensemble, for the perfect arrangement of 
all its details, and for its grand and majestic pro- 
portions. 

For the last-mentioned feature of its excellence 
New Orleans claims no credit. It was a mighty 
assembling of the Southern people. Half a score of 
great States contributed their splendid soldiery and 
their civilian citizens, who gathered as if they were 
mere members of a vast family around the grave of 
their beloved dead. But it is in the creation and 



CONCLUSION. 99 

control of a grand street pageant that New Orleans 
is pre-eminent, and to the large experience, the ad- 
mirable taste, the unerring art instinct and the 
lavish liberality of the people of our good city, are 
wholly due the splendor, the beauty and the perfec- 
tion of arrangement that have made the funeral of 
Jefferson Davis one of the most notable events of 
the age. It was most fortunate for the entire South 
that Providence ordained that the last days of the 
life of that illustrious man were spent in the great 
city of his devoted people. 

A QUESTION IN CONCLUSION. 

Shall Jefferson Davis dead be as heartily hated 
and as mercilessly abused as was Jefferson Davis 
alive ? " He had his faults." So had Lincoln and 
Grant. So had the immortal Washington himself 
Much of the reproach cast upon Mr. Davis has 
grown out of a failure to give due recognition to the 
following facts : 

1. He was not responsible for the beginning or 
the continuation of the war. It is true he advocated 
armed resistance if the General Government under- 
took to interfere with the States that passed ordi- 
nances of secession. But so did hundreds of public 
men throughout the South, whose views were entirely 
independent of what he had ever declared or taught. 
And if we leave the ranks of public men and come 



100 LlP^^ikF JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

to men in private station, we find that they were of 
the same mind. Indeed, whether the truth be 
looked upon as creditable or dishonoring to the 
South, let it be told — the movement of the Southern 
people in the years from 1860 to 1865 as much de- 
serves to be called a great popular uprising as any 
movement that ever occurred among any people. 
Say, if you choose, they were deceived, but say they 
were self-deceived. Jefferson Davis was able, was 
courageous, was determined, was fruitful in expe- 
dients of statecraft and of war, and yet Fort Sumter, 
and Manassas, and Fredericksburg, and Gettysburg, 
and Cold Harbor would have occurred if he had 
never been born. 

2. Was Jefferson Davis a traitor? The Federal 
Government had him in its power ; he was arraigned 
on this charge before one of its courts ; the Govern- 
ment had every opportunity of gathering the law 
and facts against him, and yet it declined even to 
undertake to prove the accusation made. Ought not 
this fact of history to make us a little modest in try- 
ing to fasten on his name the stigma of treason ? 

3. The armies directed by Jefferson Davis, what- 
ever else may be said of them, were not armies of 
invasion or conquest, but stood only for defence, and 
represented a people that simply asked to be let 
alone. 

4. Jefferson Davis was consistent and sincere; his 



CONCLUSION. 101 

course as naturally followed from the theories long 
held and publicly advocated by him as the course of 
Jefferson, Henry and Adams flowed from their views 
concerning the relations of the colony to the mother- 
country. Had Jefferson Davis adhered to the Union 
after Mississippi had passed her secession act, histo- 
rians, with the records before them, would have 
found no little difficulty in vindicating his reputa- 
tion from crookedness and time-serving. 

5. " But slavery was such a horrible crime." Say 
so, if you choose ; but, as you say so, remember that 
for the existence of this horrible crime on Anglo- 
American shores the South was no more responsible 
than the North. Southerners bought the negroes 
and worked them on their plantations, but North- 
erners transported them from African jungles and 
sold them to all that were willing to buy. Even 
the large-hearted Peter Faneuil, who built the famous 
hall called by his name, fitted out ships for the 
slave-trade; and it is not impossible that some of 
the money that first went to construct that " cradle " 
in which Bostonians were to rock " Liberty " in its 
infant days, came from the traffic. The only real 
difference seems to be, that the North, under self- 
interest as a teacher, a little sooner learned than the 
South that slavery was a great moral wrong. 

6. " Slavery was so degrading to the negroes." 
Say that if you feel it is true ; but let your empha- 



102 Lll'fi*^ JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

sis be a little diminished when it is found that, 
though the colored people do not occupy a very high 
social, intellectual or religious plane, yet in the 
Southern States they have attained a higher devel- 
opment in intelligence and religion than a like num- 
ber has reached in any other quarter of the globe. 

7. " The Union never could have been formed if 
it had been supposed that any State might withdraw 
from it at pleasure." On the other hand, can it be 
supposed that any State — Virginia, for example — 
would have adopted the Federal Constitution and 
gone into the Union if she had imagined that in so 
doing she would be giving to her sister States the 
right to invade her soil, to divide her territory, to 
devastate her fields, to overturn her government, to 
bombard her towns and to slay her sons ? 

The fact that the Federal Government, in dealing 
with the seceded States, found it impossible to lay 
down and follow out to the end any consistent 
policy, gives at least a suggestion that the Federal 
Constitution did not very clearly lay down the prin- 
ciple of coercion. First, the seceded States were 
not out of the Union, and could not go out ; then, 
at last, they could go out and were out, and must 
be brought back by " reconstruction " measures. 
First, the Federal Government had no right and no 
intention to interfere with slavery, but only to 
maintain the Union; but at last its armies were 



CONCLUSION. 103 

" armies of freedom," its battles were " battles of 
freedom," and its victories were " victories of free- 
dom." 

In short, let North and South do justice to each 
other. Then good will and fraternity will come back, 
and no Southerner will be tempted any longer to 
give a spiteful application to that verse of Dryden, 

"But they ne'er pardon who have done the wrong.'* 



REMINISCENCES AND ADDRESSES. 



A TRIBUTE FROM A CLASSMATE. 

BY GKNERAI, GEORGK W. JONES, 

Ex-United States Senator. 

MR. DAVIS and I became college mates in Tran- 
sylvania University, in Lexington, Kentucky, 
in the month of October, 1821. He remained 
there until 1823, when he went to the West Point 
Military Academy, N. Y. I remained at the uni- 
versity, and graduated there on the 13th of July, 
1825. He was graduated from the United States 
Military Academy in the spring of 1828, and imme- 
diately assigned to duty as a second lieutenant of 
infantry at Fort Crawford, Prairie du Chien (then 
Michigan Territory, now in the State of Wisconsin). 
At that time I was engaged in the mining and smelt- 
ing of lead ore (galena), merchandising and farming 
business at Sinsinawa Mound (now in Grant County, 
Wisconsin), then in the Territory of Michigan. I 
went into this business at the suggestion of Doctor 
Lewis F. Linn, of Ste. Genevieve, Mo., who was my 
family physician there whilst I was reading law in 
the office of Messrs. Scott & Allen, of that place. 
Doctor Linn advised me to leave the law office and 
confinement as the only means of restoring my 

health, which had been greatly impaired by constant 

107 



108 KEMINISCeS?!^ of JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

application in college and as a law student for five 
or six years or more. 

In the summer of 1828, whilst engaged at Sin- 
sinawa Mound in the avocations referred to, Jeffer- 
son Davis came to my log cabin one night, accom- 
panied by an orderly sergeant, and inquired whether 
Mr. Jones resided there, and upon being informed (it 
being in the night), asked whether he could be accom- 
modated with a night's lodging. I replied that he 
could, but that his fare would be very poor, as I had 
no other bed than a very small bunk in one corner 
of my cabin. I could, however, give him some 
buffalo robes and blankets, and that, having no 
stable, his horses could be hobbled out as my own 
horse was. He asked me if I had ever been to 
Transylvania University. I replied that I had. I 
had before that inquired " Where he was going and 
where he was from." " To Fort Crawford," he said, 
" and from Galena." I said, " You are twelve miles 
off your road, and there is no road from here to 
Prairie du Chien." He asked me if I recollected a 
college boy at Lexington by the name of Jeff. Davis. 
I responded that I could never forget that dear 
friend. He said, " I am Jeff." I sprang from my 
door into the dark and drew him from his horse. 
He had come out expressly to visit me. We talked 
nearly all night of our college-boy days, and he 
remained with me several days. Often, during the 



A TKIBUTE FEOM A CLASSMATE. 109 

summer and fall, he made me delightful visits. He 
informed me of his course, etc., at West Point, and 
I related mine at Lexington after he left there in 
1823. I told him of my loss of health and of the 
advice of Dr. Linn that I should quit the law office, 
high living and a sedentary life, and go to hard 
work, coarse food, exercise in the open air and on 
horseback, etc., etc., as the only means of regaining 
my health and of getting Josephine Gregoire for my 
wife, as I did on the 7th day of January next there- 
after at Ste. Genevieve, Mo. I told dear Jeff, of how 
I had built those two seventeen feet square log cabins 
in two days from the standing trees, carrying up two 
corners thereof myself, putting on the clap-board 
roofs, the pine-plank unplaned floor, the batten door, 
and one eight by ten twelve-light window, the 
counter and shelves, etc., of pine plank which I had 
brought from Ste. Genevieve, Mo. ; that being the 
first work at carpentering that I had ever done, but 
that I was a natural -born mechanic, musician and 
dancer. Strictly following out Dr. Linn's advice, 
given me at Ste. Genevieve, Mo., in the spring of 
1827, had restored me to health and vigor, as I have 
never since been confined one day, though I am now 
upwards of eighty-seven years old. 

Jefferson Davis was considered at Transylvania 
University, whilst he remained there with me, the 
most active, intelligent and splendid-looking young 



110 REMINIScSStes OF JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

man in the College, although he had, as college mates, 
such young gentlemen as Gustavus A. Henry — the 
afterwards Eagle Orator of the South, Edward A. 
Hannegan, the Indiana statesman and orator, and 
such other distinguished men in after years as Hon. 
John M. Bass, the distinguished son-in-law of Felix 
Grundy, of Nashville, Tenn., Hon. Jno. W. Tib- 
batts, the Moreheads, Jesse D. Bright, David R. 
Atchison, Solomon W. Downs and many others of 
like distinction \vith whom Davis and I served as 
brother Congressmen in both Houses in after years, 
and up to the Civil War of 1861-65. 

After I became a married man and built a much 
better dwelling-house at Sinsinawa Mound, Mr. 
Davis very often visited me there and became as a 
member of my family, and greatly attached to and 
beloved by my wife, children, adopted children, my 
brother-in-law, A. L. Gregoire, my two nieces, 
Misses Mary and Eliza Brady — afterwards the wives 
of Jacob Wyeth, M.D., and Col. Geo. W. Campbell, 
of Galena, 111., the latter a Federal officer in 
1861-65. 

I served as General Henry Dodge's aide-de-camp 
during the Black Hawk War of 1832, whilst Jeffer- 
son Davis was a lieutenant in the same campaign, 
under the then Colonel Zachary Taylor, President of 
the United States from the 4th of March, 1849, 
until he died, in July of that year. General W. S. 



A TRIBUTE FROM A CLASSMATE. HI 

Harney, then a captain, was in the same command 
with us. He, Colonel Taylor and Jefferson Davis 
often shared their tents with me in bad weather and 
divided their rations also with me, we of the militia 
having no tents whatever, and were often without 
bread. I had been well acquainted with Colonel 
Taylor and Captain Harney in the city of St. Louis, 
Mo., as early as 1824. Hence, my intimacy and 
the sharer of their kindness and Davis' in the 
Indian War with the Sacs and Foxes, Winnebagoes, 
etc. 

After the war and the treaty with the Sacs and 
Foxes, made by General Winfield Scott and General 
Henry Dodge, a short distance above the present 
city of Davenport, la., which I myself attended and 
participated in making, with Keokuk and other 
chiefs, and when Black Hawk was deposed, the 
lead miners of Illinois, Wisconsin, then Michigan 
Territory, et aL, such as the Lang worthies, the 
Camps, the Dodges, Harrisons, Wheelers, Foleys, 
Smiths, Lorimers, Gratiots, Jordans, McKnights, 
Lorains, Brophys, Carrolls, etc., etc., flocked in great 
numbers over the river to the near vicinity of Julien 
Dubuque's deserted lead mines, at and near Catico 
and the present city of Dubuque, and took posses- 
sion thereof, as squatters, miners, merchants, 
artisans, etc., etc. As soon as the same was made 
known to the administration of the then President 



112 EEMINIScft!l€)ES OF JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

of the United States, General Andrew Jackson, his 
Secretary of War, Hon. John. Forsyth, issued orders 
to Colonel Zachary Taylor, then in command at Fort 
Crawford, to have those intruders, the squatters, 
removed therefrom. Colonel Taylor immediately 
dispatched Lieutenant George Wilson, then of his 
command, with what was deemed a sufficient 
number of United States infantry to the Dubuque 
lead mines, to drive from them the squatters at the 
point of the bayonet, if necessary. The squatters 
laughed at the order, and soon afterwards Lieutenant 
Gardineer was sent down with an increased number 
of troops, to effect what Lieutenant Wilson had 
failed to do. Lieutenant Gardineer was as unsuc- 
cessful as Wilson had been, although he (Gardineer) 
destroyed many cabins and miners' huts, their 
wagons, teams, etc. Colonel Taylor, then, having 
great confidence in Lieutenant Jefferson Davis, sent 
him down from Fort Crawford mth an increased 
number of infantry troops to perform the duty in the 
very cold mid-winter and deep snow, in 1832 and 
1833. Lieutenant Davis encamped with his com- 
mand a very few yards north of the present tunnel 
and the now great Iron Bridge of the Illinois Cen- 
tral Kailroad, on the east side of the river, in what 
is now known as East Diibuqiie, formerly and then 
as Jordan's Ferrj^, in Jo Daviess County, 111. Mr. 
Davis immediately went in person across the river 



A TEIBUTE FEOM A CLASSMATE. II3 

and commenced a very different course of action to 
that which had been pursued by his predecessors, 
Gardineer and Wilson, without any of his command, 
save, perhaps, an orderly-sergeant, and commenced 
to reason with the intruders upon what were yet 
Indian lands, as the treaty made by Generals Scott, 
Dodge, et al.^ had not been ratified by the Senate of 
the United States, if, indeed, it had been sent into 
that body for its ratification and approval. He was 
not very long in convincing such men as the Lang- 
worthy family. Colonel H. T. Camp, the Hamp- 
steads, Lorimers and others, of the folly of resisting 
the strong Army of the Government of the United 
States. He found considerable trouble, however, in 
convincing two Irish brothers by the name of Har- 
rison, who had struck, what they believed to be, a 
splendid prospect, if not a great lead, of the precious 
ore. He assured them that their claim to the 
mining lot of some ten acres, from which they had 
already raised some fifty to seventy-five thousand 
pounds of ore, should be respected and retained for 
them by the then Agent of the United States Lead 
Mines, at Galena, 111. — Major Thos. C. Legate, of the 
United States Army, who was his (Davis') personal 
friend. His conciliatory course with those squatters 
convinced them that " discretion was the better 
part of valor," and great numbers of miners, smelt- 
ers, store- keepers, teamsters, laborers, etc., deter- 
8 



114 KEMINIScSSfcES OF JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

mined to leave the country en masse, and await the 
action of the Congress of the United States, or 
rather the Senate of the United States. 

The Harrisons and all others, after the treaty was 
ratified, were restored to their possessions, and they 
all, without exception, became the warm friends and 
admirers of Jefferson Davis. I myself bought that 
prospect of the Harrisons and paid them ten thou- 
sand dollars in gold for their claim, which has ever 
since been known as the Harrison alias Kilbourn 
Lead, now the Karrick and wholly owned by myself 
at this late day, though it has passed through the 
hands of Captain Geo. Ord Karrick, Benjamin Kil- 
bourn, Alexander Levi, Geo. W. Starr, Colonel 
Mason, the original Chief Engineer of the Illinois 
Central Railroad, and is noio wholly owned by my- 
self, as the successor of the above-named and other 
persons. 

I was about to omit that there was but one woman 
amongst the squatters when Lieutenant Davis in- 
duced the whole community, save her, to leave those 
mines in the cold winter of 1832-33. That woman 
was the late Mrs. Lawrence, then bearing the name 
of her first husband. Mr. Davis, because of the ex- 
treme severity of the winter, permitted her to con- 
tinue to occupy her log cabin. She remained during 
the residue of her life, the devoted and grateful 
friend of Jefferson Davis. She was a strict member 



A TRIBUTE FROM A CLASSMATE. 115 

of the Methodist Episcopal Church at Dubuque, 
and died there only some twelve months since, be- 
loved by all who knew her. She never met me that 
she did not inquire for our mutual friend, Lieutenant 
Davis. I called to see her but a very few days 
before her death, when, on her dying-bed, she sent 
her warmest regards to and best wishes for our 
absent friend; although, like the members of her 
church in Iowa, generally, she was for the Union, 
and opposed to secession, as I myself was. But 
she believed Mr. Davis to be an honest man and a 
true friend to the whole country, whether he was 
for secession or not. 

Soon after the Black Hawk War of 1832, Mr. 
Davis became the Adjutant of the First Regiment of 
United States Cavalry, whose heroic and noble com- 
mander was General Henry Dodge, whose aide-de- 
camp I was in that war. He and General Dodge 
became friends and admirers of each other during 
that campaign, if, indeed, they were not personal 
friends at Dodgeville and Mineral Point, in Wiscon- 
sin, before that Black Hawk War. Their association 
in the Indian War, and as brother officers of the 
Cavalry Corps of Dragoons, in both Houses of Con- 
gress and whilst Mr. Davis was Secretary of War, 
under General Franklin Pierce, President of the 
United States, from the 4th of March, 1853, until 
the 4th of March, 1857, and afterwards in and out 



116 EEMINIsSSllCES OF JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

of Congress, caused- the formation of an intimacy, 
friendship and confidence between those great and 
good men and patriots, which I well know continued 
to exist whilst they both lived. I speak under- 
standingly on this point, because I was General 
Dodge's admirer and friend from my childhood, both 
of us having been born at Yincennes, Indiana, and 
we having lived together at Ste. Genevieve, Mo., 
where I was Clerk of the District Court of the 
United States, whilst General Dodge was the Marshal 
of the United States for Missouri, and also, because 
of our intimacy and devoted friendship in Wisconsin, 
and also in the Senate of the United States. General 
Dodge, as the Senator in Congress from Wisconsin, 
felt bound to obey the instructions of his Legislature 
on the subject of abolitionism, the Missouri Compro- 
mise and other like questions. Mr. Davis and I often 
voted against him on these questions; but as we 
were all three Democrats, the intercourse and friend- 
ship which had always existed between us was 
never, lor 07ie moment, interrupted, and I know that 
General Dodge died the warm admirer and friend of 
Mr. Davis, and, like myself, would have sustained 
him for any political or military position in the 
United States after, as well as he/ore the late unfor- 
tunate Civil War. And such do I firmly believe 
was the opinion and feeling of General Augustus C. 
Dodge, the son of General Henry Dodge, who, as a 



A TKIBUTE FROM A CLASSMATE. 117 

private, served under his father in the Black Hawk 
War, where he, too, formed the friendship and confi- 
dence of Jefferson Davis, which existed whilst we 
were brother United States Senators and warm su}> 
porters of the administration of President Pierce, 
who sent him as the representative of the United 
States to Spain, at the court at Madrid, where he 
occupied an exalted position as the Minister of the 
United States. I refer thus particularly to the opin- 
ions and feelings of these two life-long personal and 
political friends, because I know that they, like my- 
self and all others who knew Jefferson Davis well, 
were always aware of the great injustice and wrong 
which has been done to that hero, statesman and 
patriot, ever since the inauguration of the late Civil 
War, which he lamented as sincerely as any man, 
living or dead, and which he earnestly endeavored 
to prevent in every honest and patriotic manner 
consistent with his position as a Southern man. I 
firmly believe that the future historian will do justice 
to him and his section, when the "sober second 
thought shall prevail " in our beloved country. 

But since the termination of the late inter-state 
war, all sorts of slander, detraction and ridiculous 
reports and stories have been fulminated, printed, 
published and scattered broad-cast over the land to 
injure the fair fame and good name of Mr. Davis. 
Amongst other ridiculous creations it has been pub- 



118 EEMINlSCSIiCES OF JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

lished and circulated through the newspapers that 
Mr. Davis stole away in the night-time, from his res- 
idence in Prairie du Chien, the daughter of Colonel 
Zachary Taylor, and that he took her across the 
Mississippi River into Iowa, and that they were there 
married by a Catholic priest, whom Mr. Davis had 
induced to aid him in his nefarious scheme. The 
fact is, as I well know, that Mr. Davis married Miss 
Knox Taylor near Louisville, Ky., in the residence 
of a near blood relation (her aunt) and with the 
entire and full consent of every member of Colonel 
Taylor's family. Colonel Hercules L. Dousman, of 
Prairie du Chien, who was an intimate and confi- 
dential friend of both Colonel Taylor and Mr. Davis, 
and always one of my earnest supporters in all of 
my contests for delegate to Congress from Michigan, 
Wisconsin and Iowa, assured me that Colonel Taylor 
never was unfriendly to Mr. Davis, either before or 
after his marriage to Miss Taylor, and that he made 
no objection to it. After Mr. Davis' appointment as 
Adjutant of the First Regiment of United States 
Cavalry under my old commander and life-long 
friend. General Dodge, I never met with him until 
in the early winter of 1837-38, when he reached 
Washington City from the city of Havana, in Cuba, 
whither he had been for the restoration of his health, 
which had become greatly impaired on his farm or 
plantation in Mississippi. He called on me at my 



A TRIBUTE FROM A CLASSMATE. 119 

then boarding-house, at Dowson's, on Capital Hill, 
some 150 or 200 yards northeast of the present 
Senate Chamber, where I messed with Senator 
Benton and Doctor Linn of Mo. Wm. Allen, Senator 
from Ohio, Hon. E. A. Hannegan of Indiana and 
some forty other members of Congress. I soon 
induced my old college-mate to become my guest, 
I having two good rooms besides our common 
parlor, and I sent immediately my servant for his 
baggage, at what is now the Metropolitan Hotel 
(then Brown's). One one occasion Doctor Linn, 
Allen, Davis and I went to a large party together in 
the west end. At about midnight Doctor Linn pro- 
posed to go home, as he was not feeling well. We 
soon found Davis and Allen in the banque ting-room, 
eating supper and drinking champagne with I. I. 
Crittenden, Haws and others. Crittenden said : 
" Linn, you and Jones go home and Haws and I will 
take Allen and Davis with us, as we have a carriage 
to ourselves." So Doctor Linn and I left them. 
Doctor Linn and I were soon in bed, and in a short 
time we heard in the distance the stentorian voice of 
Allen, coming up the Hill. Soon they entered 
Doctor Linn's room, where I was in bed with him. 
Davis was without a hat, the blood, mud and water 
dripping down over his pale face, Allen all the while 
repeating the speech which he had been delivering 
to Davis, and which he (Allen) had made when he 



120 KEMINI9«J5j[CT:S OF JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

ran for the House of Representatives of the United 
States in Ohio, against Governor Mc Arthur, his 
future father-in-law. Doctor Linn soon dressed 
Davis' severe wounds on his head. I went into 
Davis' room, got clean, dry clothes and then took 
him into his room and put him to bed. The next 
morning early I went in to see whether Davis would 
soon be ready for breakfast. I found him uncon- 
scious, ran back and told Doctor Linn, who took a 
bottle of ether and giving me one of camphor, we 
commenced the proper aj)plication and rubbing, when 
Davis in a short time was restored to consciousness 
Doctor Linn said that Davis would have been dead 
in a few minutes had we not gone to his relief. 
During Mr. Davis' sojourn that winter with me he 
became well acquainted especially with our mess, and 
all became greatly attached to him and greatly ad- 
mired him. 1 informed Hon. Robt. J. Walker, then 
a Senator from Mississippi, that I had a young friend 
and old college-mate with me, and advised him to 
call on and pay him some attention, as he was one of 
his constituents. My present recollection is that he 
never became acquainted with Davis until he became 
a member of the House of Representatives. They 
afterwards became warm friends. 

In 1846 (February) I went to Washington City as 
Surveyor-General of Wisconsin from Dubuque, and 
became a boarder at the same house where my 



A TRIBUTE FROM A CLASSMATE. 121 

friends, the two Dodges (then Delegates from Wis- 
consin and Iowa), Mr. and Mrs. Davis, Ambrose H. 
Sevier, Jacob Thompson and other Members of Con- 
gress boarded. On one occasion, when sitting by 
Davis in the House of Representatives, he said, 
" Augustus Dodge tells me that you are hard up for 
money, upon my inquiring of him as to your finan- 
cial condition." I replied that there was a judgment 
against me at home for $400, the only debt I owed. 
He took up his pen, drew a draft in my favor for 
one thousand dollars on J. U. Payne, his then com- 
mission merchant in New Orleans, and handed it to 
me. It surprised me, and I asked, " Where did you 
get money from, as the last time I saw you, in 1838, 
you were yourself pressed for money." He said he 
had made good cotton crops on his plantation. I 
drew my note for $1000 in his favor, at ten per cent, 
interest, and handed it to him. He tore the note 
into pieces, threw them under his feet, saying, 
" When you get more money than you know what 
to do with, you may pay me, not before." In 1853, 
as Secretary of War, he appointed my son, William 
A. Bodley Jones, without my knowledge, at a hint 
from Governor Dodge, of Wisconsin, to whom my 
son wrote on the subject a confidential letter, I 
having refused to make such an application for him, 
as I had other constituents who desired such appoint- 
ments. During my absence at Bogota in 1861 my 



122 KEMmfStai^CES OF JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

son, George R. G. Jones, left Dubuque, Iowa, and 
went to Nashville, Tenn., Hon. I. G. Harris, now of 
the United States Senate, being then Governor of the 
State. He sent for him, and immediately commis- 
sioned him in the Confederate Army, upon learning 
that he had been graduated at the W. M. Institute, 
and that he had gone South to volunteer in the ser- 
vice of that section, and that he was a son of mine. 
My eldest son, Charles S. Jones, was then at Dubuque, 
awaiting my return home from Bogota. Soon after 
my return he, too, left Dubuque with his young wife, 
under pretence of visiting her parents at Frankfort, 
Ky., but with the intention, also, of tendering his 
services in the cause of the Confederacy, but without 
letting me or any other member of my family know 
what his real intention was. On reaching Richmond 
he immediately applied to President Davis for em- 
ployment as a clerk in one of the departments. 
The President told him that no son of his father or 
mother could ask in vain for position under him, and 
gave him a note to Mr. Treholm for employment. 
In a very short time ^Charles received an appoint- 
ment as an adjutant-general from General Bushrod 
Johnson, under whom he and his brother had both 
graduated. These evidences of the friendship which 
existed between Mr. Davis and myself and family 
are extremely gratifying to me, and to every mem- 
ber of my family, the dead as well as the living. 



A TRIBUTE FEOM A CLASSMATE. 123 

Some six to eight- years since Mr. Davis wrote, 
me, informing me that a man living at Independence, 
Iowa, had his wife's album, and requested me to try 
and get it for her, as it contained the likenesses of 
their children, living and dead, and of many old 
friends. I immediately wrote to a friend at Inde- 
pendence, and was informed that the man, whose 
name, I believe, was Moore, had removed to Water- 
loo. So I took the next train, and on reaching 
there, I learned to my regret that Moore had re- 
moved from Waterloo out into Tama County, some 
thirty miles farther out. So I got my abolition 

cousin, Mr. Tom P , to introduce me to some 

reliable Democratic attorney; he took me to the 
law office of Messrs. Boies, Allen & Couch, when 
the latter gentleman agreed to accompany me 
the next morning to Tama County. The next 
morning, after early breakfast, I called for my attor- 
ney, and we were soon wending our way to Moore's 
Mill, in Tama County, some one hundred and thirty 
to one hundred and fifty miles west of Dubuque. 
Before reaching Moore's my attorney drew up a writ 
of attachment or replevin, and procured an officer, 
a young man of some eighteen to twenty years, to 
serve the paper, if necessary. On reaching within a 
mile of Moore's Mr. Couch remained behind in the 
woods, as he would probably be known as an attor- 
ney. On entering the house, which my young officer 



124 EEMINi:Sf«HfES OF JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

knew, we found a rough-looking man seated on one 
side of a table, whilst a younger man, a woman and 
two or three little children were seated on the other 
side, where they had been eating. I said to the 
older man, " I understand that you have the album 
of Jefferson Davis, the Southern Secessionist, and 
that you wish to sell it." He replied, " It is my son 
who has it, not I." I then said to the son, " I am 
told that you wish to, or will, sell the album." He 
replied, " There is such an album in this neighbor- 
hood." " Well, I will give $40 for it, if it be the 
same album that I once saw in Washington, and it 
is in good condition." He arose from his seat, went 
into an adjoining room, and I saw him through the 
crack of the door beckon to his wife to follow him, 
which she did. I then said to the father, " It can't 
be, surely, the album of Mrs. Davis, away out here 
in Iowa." " Yes, it is," he replied, " for I saw it and 
other things taken out of Mrs. Davis' trunk at For- 
tress Monroe, when Jeff, and his wife were there as 
prisoners." The son and woman then returned to 
the room, when, holding his two hands behind his 
back, under his coat, he said, ^^ You'll pay $40 for it 
if I can get it." " Yes, I will, if it be the same album 
that I have seen in the Secessionist's house in Wash- 
ington City, and it is in good condition, with the 
likenesses, etc., in it." He then handed it to me, 
when I deliberately looked through it and said, " My 



A TRIBUTE FROM A CLASSMATE. 125 

own likeness, those of Generals Lee, Johnston and 
others, besides the little children of Mr. and Mrs. 
Davis, are not here ; where are they ? and the book 
is very dirty and much soiled," etc. He said, " We 
have given many of the likenesses away to our 
friends since we got it." I then handed it to the 
constable and said, " Serve your writ." He said, " I 
attach this album," when the old man said aloud, 
and looking savagely at me, " I thought you were 
some old Secesh," and the woman, with vengeance 
in her eyes, said, " You are no gentleman." I replied, 
" How would you, madam, like to have the album 
containing your little children's likenesses, the dead 
as well as the living, stolen out of- your trunk, with 
your jewelry and other valuables ?" I said, " Con- 
stable, let us go," and we walked out of the house, 
got into his buggy and drove out through the village 
to Mr. Couch, who, as soon as he saw me, said, 
" What success, general ?" " Here it is," holding it 
up, "and I would not take a thousand dollars for it." 
He asked if we had given Moore a copy of the writ. 
I replied, "We have not, but we'll return and do so." 
" No," he said, " I will now go back and do that, 
but you had better remain here as I did." On Mr. 
Couch's return, he said, " I found Moore's house full 
of enraged men, and swearing vengeance against 
you." The old man told Mr. Couch that he saw 
" the d — d old Secessionist with his hand in his coat 



126 KEMINISCSS^S OF JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

pocket on his pistol." That pistol was handed me as 
I left the door of his house in the morning by my 
good abolition cousin and friend, he insisting that I 
should take it. I believe it saved me from a 
severe beating, if not my life. On my return to 
Waterloo, I desired to pay my attorneys, Messrs. 
Boies & Couch, for Mr. Couch's day's service, etc., 
but they would receive no fee from me, although 
I had never before seen either of the two gentle- 
men. I since have had the pleasure to help elect 
Mr. Couch as the Judge of our District Court and* to 
make Mr. Boies the Governor of our State. Mr. 
Couch paid Moore some time thereafter ten dollars 
for me, which sum Mr. Davis sent me on receipt of 
their stolen family album. 

In the summer or fall of 1853 or 1854, Colonel 
Long, of the United States Engineer Corps, when at 
Dubuque inspecting the harbor improvement, un- 
der the Act of Congress, was applied to by my 
brother-in-law, Mr. Charles Gregoire, deceased, for 
permission to change the plan and survey of the 
same, he, Mr. Gregoire, being the then President of 
the Dubuque Harbor Improvement Company. Col- 
onel Long refused to authorize the change, but sug- 
gested to Mr. Gregoire to get me to ask the then 
Secretary of War, Mr. Davis, to permit the change 
asked for to be made. On reaching Washington to 
resume my seat in the Senate, I made the request of 



A TEIBUTE FROM A CLASSMATE. 127 

the President, Mr. Gregoire, known to Secretary 
Davis, who very promptly complied with the request 
of Mr. Gregoire. That change constitutes the pres- 
ent Ice Steamboat Harbor, an invaluable improve- 
ment. 

Some eight or ten years ago, at a meeting in 
Dubuque of the Agricultural Society of the State, a 
resolution was unanimously adopted, requestjj?g 
Hon. Jefferson Davis to come to Dubuque, from his 
then residence at Beau voir, and deliver an address, 
and Mr. Solon M. Langworthy was appointed to and 
came to me and requested me to write to Mr. Davis 
to accept the invitation. I did so, and received a 
favorable reply. A short time thereafter, Mr. Davis 
came to this city (St. Louis), and after delivering an 
agricultural address at De Soto, some sixty miles 
from this city, wrote a letter to Mr. Langworthy and 
myself, declining to go to Dubuque. 

About seven - years since, a scurrilous article was 
republished in the St. Louis Globe-Democrat and 
taken from an Iowa paper, accusing Mr. Davis of 
having once been caught cheating at a game of cards 
for money at Prairie du Chien, and that he was then 
slapped in his face by one of the players, who was 
known to be a dangerous character. I called on the 
editor of the St. Louis paper and asked for the author 
of that article. I was not given any satisfaction by 
the editor. I was afterwards informed by a Belle vieu, 



128 EEMINlSBftKCES OF JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

Iowa, editor, that the story was entirely destitute of 
truth, its author, now dead, having been a notorious 
falsifier. I told this story to my lately deceased and 
noble old friend, General Wm. S. Harney, at his 
home at Pass Christian, when he denounced the 
same in bitter terms, saying that Mr. Davis was 
never a card-player, and that no man was ever per- 
mitted to slap him with impunity at Prairie du 
Chien, where he was associated with him, or at any 
other place. 



AN ABLE MAN AND A LEADER. 

BY JAMKS CAMPBKI.I., 
E)x-Postmaster General of the United States. 

I KNEW Jefferson Davis well. I was intimately 
associated with him from 1853 to 1857, during 

the administration of President Pierce, when we 
were both in the Cabinet together, he as Secretary 
of War and I as Postmaster-General. 

I first made Davis' acquaintance iii March, 1853, 
when we entered the Cabinet together, and our as- 
sociation soon became personal, as well as official, 
for — although I was a Northern man and he a 
Southern, and he was an older man than I — he 
seemed to take a fancy to me, while I respected 
and admired him. Our relations were always 
pleasant, and we were together from the beginning 
to the end of President Pierce's term. 

General Pierce's Cabinet was peculiar in more 
ways than one. It was the only Cabinet in the his- 
tory of the country that remained intact through- 
out the entire Presidential term, and it was singu- 
larly harmonious. We had the entire confidence 
of the President and he had ours, and he trusted 
more to his Cabinet officers than any President has 

9 129 



130 EEMINlSSHjJJCES OF JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

done since. The Cabinet nowadays seems to be a 
mere corps of clerks who record the President's 
wishes. Pierce's Cabinet officers worked together 
for four years without the slightest difficulty or 
dissension. 

A LITTLE DISAGREEMENT. 

There was never but one occasion during our four 
years together in the Cabinet when Mr. Davis and 
I had any difference of opinion which brought us 
into conflict, and it was not at all a serious one. In 
fact, the incident is so trivial that if it possesses 
any value now it is because anything that relates to 
Jefferson Davis has perhaps a certain biographical 
interest just now. 

It was early in President Pierce's administration. 
In pursuance of my duty as Postmaster-General, at 
a meeting of the Cabinet I laid before the President 
certain recommendations as to appointments to the 
post-offices in various States — the more important 
post-offices, which were to be filled by the President 
himself, and which were known as Presidential ap- 
pointments. 

DAVIS DIDN'T LIKE IT. 

Among other recommendations were a number in 
Mississippi — Davis' State — and some of the candi- 
dates recommended for appointment were men who 
had opposed Davis in his contest with Foote. Davis 



AN ABLE MAN AND A LEADER. 131 

was a man of very intense likes and dislikes, and 
he didn't at all like the idea of his political foes 
coming in for patronage, and he said so. But I in- 
sisted upon the list being put through. 

The President saw there was likely to be words 
between us over the Mississippi names, and he said, 
quietly : 

" Mr. Postmaster-General, please put those aside ; 
I will take them up at another time." 

I went over to the White House to see the Presi- 
dent next day, and he said to me : " 1 have heard 
Mr. Davis' objections to those names, but you were 
right. Make out those appointments." 

President Pierce would never permit any political 
discussions at the Cabinet meetings. He had great 
tact, and we got along with wonderful harmony in 
the midst of a most exciting period. 

Mr. Davis came into the Cabinet under somewhat 
peculiar circumstances. He had been elected to the 
House of Representatives in 1845 from Mississippi, 
but had not particularly distinguished himself, when 
the Mexican War broke out. He had been edu- 
cated as a soldier at West Point, as everybody 
knows, but had left the army and settled on a Mis- 
sissippi plantation named Briarfield, which his 
brother, Joe Davis, a very rich man for those days, 
had given him. When the Mexican War broke out 
he at once resigned his seat in Congress and re- 



132 KEMINISe^jJCES OF JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

entered the army, where he served with especial 
distinction. 

LEADING A FORLORN HOPE. 

When the war was over he was returned to the 
Senate, his colleague from Mississippi being Henry 
S. Foote, a very able man. Foote and Davis dif- 
fered on the compromise measures of Clay in 1851, 
Foote sustaining them strongly, while Davis very 
strongly opposed them. The contest between Davis 
and Foote afterward became very bitter. 

There was to be an election for Governor of Mis- 
sissippi that year, and the Democrats had nominated 
General Quitman. As the canvass progressed it 
became evident to the leaders of the party that 
Quitman was a weak candidate and would be de- 
feated. He was prevailed upon to withdraw three 
weeks before the election, and Jefferson Davis in- 
duced to resign his seat in the Senate, take Quit- 
man's place and lead a forlorn hope in the fight for 
the Governorship. 

Davis made a plucky battle, and although he was 
attacked with pneumonia after a few days, and was 
unable to make speeches, he came within about 900 
votes of being elected. 

After this defeat Davis remained quietly on his 
plantation until the Presidential canvass between 
Pierce and Scott, when Davis took the stump for 



AN ABLE MAN AND A LEADER 133 

Pierce with enthusiasm and ability, and contributed 
largely to his carrying Mississippi. This service 
led to President Pierce tendering hira the portfolio 
of Secretary of War, and so he came into the Cab- 
inet. 

Mr. Davis impressed me as a firm, unyielding 
man, of strong attachments politically and person- 
ally, and equally strong in his dislikes. I believe 
Davis was a conscientious, earnest man. I am sure 
that he always meant to be in the right. 

He was unquestionably an able man and a 
leader, and there always seemed to be something 
of the soldier about him — the result of inheritance, 
probably, for his father had been a soldier. His 
tastes lay in that 'direction, and he was in a 
congenial place as Secretary of War. Most of his 
nearest personal friends in Washington were army 
men. 

I know that Jefferson Davis is not popularly 
known as a social, genial man, but he was, as I 
came to know him. But he was not much of a 
diner out or anything of that sort. He was very 
quiet and domestic in his habits and correct in his 
private life, and was exceedingly temperate both in 
eating and drinking. These abstemious habits he 
must have kept up all his life, or he never could 
have lived to be eighty-one years of age. Mr. 
Davis was in many respects one of the most lovable 



134 KEMINI3««JigES OF JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

men whom I have ever seen. I may say, to know 
him was to love him. I am not surprised at the 
great aiBfection which the people of the South had 
for him. In honoring his memory they honor 
themselves. 

WIDE EDUCATION. 

Jefferson Davis was one of the best educated men 
whom I ever came in contact with. His acquire- 
ments were broad and often surprised us. Caleb 
Gushing, who was in the Cabinet with us, was one 
of the most highly cultured men of his time, as all 
the world knows. He was famous for his retentive 
memory and an extent and range of knowledge 
that was encyclopaedic. President Jeff Davis wasn't 
far behind Cushing, and that is saying a great deal. 

A CASE IN POINT. 

As an instance, I remember on one occasion we 
were talking about a certain medicine. Mr. Davis 
went into a minute analysis and scientific descrip- 
tion of its nature and effects, and seemed to know 
as much about it as though he were an educated 
physician who had made a special study of the 
subject. 

When he had finished I asked: "For Heavens 
sake, Davis, where did you learn all that?" 

" Judge," he replied, " you forget that I have had 



AN ABLE MAN AND A LEADER. 135 

to learn something of medicine so as to take care 
of the negroes on my plantation." 

Davis was a reading man, especially upon his- 
torical subjects. He was particularly interested in 
the political history of his country, and I think 
there have been few men who were better posted 
in that line than Mr. Davis. 

In politics he was one of the most stubborn 
slavery men whom I ever met. 

A DISCIPLE OF CALHOUN. 

He was a political disciple of Calhoun in all his 
most extreme States' rights views. And although 
I could not agree with Mr. Davis on this point, and 
it was a time of intense partisanship and the bit- 
terest feelings, which were soon to break out in 
secession and civil war, we never had an unpleas- 
ant dispute. Yet we always talked with great 
freedom. Davis and other Southern leaders, and 
especially the Senators from the Southern States 
with whom I was brought into constant official in- 
tercourse, talked with me with more frankness than 
to most Northern men, I suppose because I was the 
son-in-law of an Alabama slave-holder. In those 
days Northern and Southern Democrats alike felt 
that there would be great trouble in the country if 
Fremont was elected. Everything that the influ- 
ence of the administration could do to turn the 



136 EEMINIS^S^tjES OF JEFFEESON DAVIS. 

scale in favor of Buchanan was done. I went into 
the fight as earnestly as anybody, because I feared 
for the future. 

IN I860. 

From the time President Pierce's Cabinet sepa- 
rated, in 1857, I did not see Mr. Davis again for 
three years. It was late in the summer of 1860, 
during the exciting political campaign which ended 
in the election of Abraham Lincoln. The whole 
country was intensely agitated, and there was great 
latent bitterness between the North and the South, 
for the two sections were arrayed against each other 
on the slavery question, and the South was ready 
to spring at the throat of the North. 

Mr. Davis passed through Philadelphia on his 
way South. He had been to West Point as one of 
the Government Board of Visitors to the Military 
Academy. I called upon my old colleague at the 
Continental Hotel and had a long talk with him 
upon the grave political questions which then filled 
every thinking man with apprehension. We were 
both Democrats and both anxious for the success 
of our party, but from far different standpoints. 
Both of us were very much in earnest, and we sat 
deeply engrossed in anxious talk until the stage 
was at the door to take him to his train. 

There were some things said during that conver- 



AN ABLE MAN AND A LEADER. 137 

sation which made a deep impression upon me, 
and which I have never forgotten. Mr. Davis was 
perturbed — uneasy — and I found that he was as 
anxious to consult with me as I was to see him. 

THE AMALGAMATED TICKET. 

The Pennsylvania Democrats had tried to unite 
on what was called the Amalgamated Electoral 
ticket. There were two rival Democratic Presiden- 
tial candidates in the field — Douglas and Breckin- 
ridge — and because of this serious split in the party 
there was great danger that the Kepublicans would 
elect Lincoln. Many leading Democrats, however, 
did not appreciate the situation, and felt secure in 
the strength of the party. I found that Mr. Davis 
was one of these. The fact that Democrats in 
Pennsylvania and in some other States had united 
on this amalgamated electoral ticket led many to 
underrate the serious nature of the division. 

APPEALING TO MR. DAVIS. 

In beginning the conversation I told Mr. Davis 
that I was anxious to talk to him because of his 
commanding influence in the South. I told him I 
feared the future, and besought him to prevent, if 
possible, any outbreak in the South in the event of 
a Democratic defeat and a triumph of the party of 
abolition. ' 



138 KEMINtt«JiJ(CES OF JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

Mr. Davis replied that he did not fear Democratic 
disaster, that the amalgamated ticket in Pennsylva- 
nia seemed likely to win. 

I earnestly told him that that was a mistake; 
that he must not allow himself to be deceived, and 
I gave him my reason at some length. I told him 
that Lincoln would certainly carry Pennsylvania by 
a very large majority and that he would certainly 
be the next President. 

Mr. Davis was greatly surprised, and I could see 
that he was deeply affected. 

" Your news has chilled me," he said. He ex- 
plained that he had been talking with Democrats 
in New York who had given him an entirely differ- 
ent impression. " But," he added, " 1 have never 
known you to be deceived as to the politics of 
Pennsylvania, and I believe you are right." 

"DO NOTHING EASH." 

I then said to him: "Mr. Davis, take it for 
granted that Abraham Lincoln will be the next 
President of the United States. Now, what are 
you men in the South going to do ? Let me urge 
you, Mr. Davis, for God's sake, to stand firm. Do 
nothing rash. You have got the Senate and the 
House. Lincoln can do nothing ; he is powerless." 

Mr. Davis listened with deep attention to all I 
said, and sat buried in thought. 



AN ABLE MAN AND A LEADER. 139 

" I have told you frankly," I said to him, " what 
I am sure will be the result of the Presidential 
election. Now let me venture to prophesy what 
will occur four years hence. If you of the South 
will permit Lincoln to serve out his term I will 
pledge my life that his successor will be a Demo- 
crat." 

Mr. Davis then said, laying his hand upon my 
arm — and I have never forgotten his words, for he 
spoke with great earnestness and feeling — 

"I LOVE THIS OLD UNION." 

"Campbell, I love this old Union. My father 
bled for it and I have fought for it. But unless you 
were in the South and knew our people, you could 
not begin to estimate the bitterness of feeling al- 
ready engendered there, and which will increase if 
Lincoln is elected." 

Just then Mrs. Davis came into the room and in- 
terrupted us. We were in the parlor of the hotel. 
She had a traveling bag in her hand and was wait- 
ing to go with her husband to the train. I rose to 
greet her, and as the coach was then waiting at the 
door Mr. Davis and I had no time to resume our 
conversation, so I bade him "good-bye," and we 
parted. 

I never saw him again nor heard from him. A 
few months afterward — the 9th of January, 1861 — 



140 KEMINlS^KCES OF JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

the State of Mississippi passed the ordinance of 
secession, Mr. Davis left his seat in the Senate at 
Washington, and a few weeks later he was made 
President of the Southern Confederacy. 



CORRECTION OF MISREPRESENTATION. 

BY J. I.. M. CURRY, I,L.D. 

MORLEY, in his life of Walpole, speaks of an 
" epidemic of unreason " as a liability of his 
countrymen. In all matters pertaining to 
slavery, secession, the war between the States, and 
Jefferson Davis, their American cousins seem to 
be subject to the epidemical sin of ignorance, preju- 
dice and passion. Men, who otherwise are rigorous 
as to the evidence and proof, find, in everything 
relating to its Confederacy and leaders, no assertion 
too wild, no insinuation too incredible, no fabrication 
too absurd. There is no present hope of correcting 
misrepresentation and perversion, but as data for the 
future historian it may be well to put on record a 
few demonstrable historical facts. They will help 
to elucidate the acts and character of Mr. Davis and 
clear up some prevalent misconceptions connected 
with the attempted establishment of the Confederacy. 
II. Secession was not a new, sudden, unheard-of 
remedy on the part of sovereign States for real or 
unanticipated evils. It grew out of a well-recog- 
nized theory of government, and out of a well-known 

contention of political parties coeval with the found a- 

141 



142 EEMIlT»i^CES OF JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

tion of the Republic. It was a necessary inference 
from the doctrine that the government was a con- 
federacy of equal States, and that the Constitution 
was a compact to which the States were parties, and 
that each party had an equal right to judge of infrac- 
tions and of the mode and measure of redress. The 
famous Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions of 1798, 
and the report of Mr. Madison to the Virginia Legis- 
lature in 1799, the National Democratic Convention 
at Cincinnati in 1856 adopted as one of the main 
foundations of its political creed, and pledged itself 
faithfully to abide by and uphold. The ratifications 
of the Constitution of the United States by the 
States of New York, and of Rhode Island, and of 
Virginia, reserved in express language the right to 
withdraw from the Union. 

The delegates of New York declared "that the 
'powers of government may he reassumed hy the people 
lolienever it shall become necessary to their happiness ; 
that every power, jurisdiction and right which is 
not by the said Constitution clearly delegated to the 
Congress of the United, or the departments of the 
Government thereof, remains to the peoples of the 
several States, or to their respective State govern- 
ments, to whom they may have granted the same, 
etc." Rhode Island declared "that the powers of 
government may be reassumed by the people when- 
soever it shall become necessary to their happiness." 



COKRECTTON OF MISREPRESENTATION. 143 

Virginia, in giving her assent, declared "that the 
powers granted under the Constitution, being derived 
from the people of the United States, may be re- 
sumed by them whenever the same shall be per- 
verted to their injury or oppression, and that every 
power not granted thereby remains with them, and 
at their will." Mr. Josiah Quincy, of Massachusetts, 
regarded the purchase of Louisiana as invalid until 
each of the original thirteen States had signified its 
assent, and on the bill for the admission of Louisiana 
as a State into the Union in 1811, he said, " If this 
bill passes, it is my deliberate opinion that it is vir- 
tually a dissolution of the Union ; that it will free 
the States from their moral obligation, and as it will 
be the right of all, so it will be the duty of some, 
definitely to prepare for a separation, amicably if 
they can, violently if they must." In 1844 Charles 
Francis Adams introduced into the Massachusetts 
Legislature a resolution in reference to the annexa- 
tion of Texas almost identical with Mr. Quincy's 
utterances in 1811, and declared that Massachusetts 
was " determined to submit to undelegated powers 
in no body of men on earth." In 1831 Maine 
declared in reference to the Northeastern Boundary 
Treaty, that it impaired her sovereign rights and 
powers, had no constitutional force or obligation, 
and that Maine was not bound by any decision which 
should be made under the treaty. The year pre- 



144 REMINISCi^NCES OF JEFFEESON DAVIS. 

ceding Massachusetts declared the treaty null and 
void, and in no way obligatory upon the government 
or people. In 1857 a State Disunion Convention 
was held at Worcester, in which it was resolved to 
seek "the expulsion of the slave States from the 
confederation, in which they have ever been an 
element of discord, danger and disgrace," and to 
organize a party whose candidates should be publicly 
pledged "to ignore the Federal Government, to 
refuse an oath to its Constitution, and to make the 
States free and independent communities." 

The Southern States, as previously announced, 
regarded the election of Mr. Lincoln by a sectional 
vote as involving necessarily the perversion of the 
government from its originally limited character and 
the overthrow of all those guarantees which furnished 
the slightest hope of equality and protection in the 
" irrepressible conflict " thus precipitated upon the 
minority section. The writer is not vindicating the 
secession of the States, nor deprecating the failure of 
the Confederacy; but as the right of secession is 
much misunderstood, a quotation is made from an 
article written by myself for the Philadelphia Times 
and published on 24th January, 1880: 

" As this is the experimentum crucis of the whole 
controversy, much misunderstood by foreigners, I 
will state it more fully. The secession of South 
Carolina may have been rash and foolish. That is 



COREECTION OF MISREPRESENTATION. 145 

not the point at issue. The naked question is, Did 
South Carolina have the right to secede ? If so, the 
allegiance of her citizens followed necessarily. The 
Hon. Stanley Matthews, a scholarly lawyer and 
statesman, in his recent address at the unyeiling of 
the statue of General Thomas, said ' The rebellion of 
1861 was founded on a fundamental misconception 
of the character of the political institutions of the 
country and of the relation of the governments of 
the States to that of the United States, and a failure 
to realize the truth that behind and below these in- 
strumentalities of political action there was a constit- 
uency that was their originating and supporting 
cause, the unity of which made a nation of all the 
people/ In this extract are a petitio principii and a 
statement of fact which, as a fact, exists only in the 
minds of consolidationists. It is assumed that the 
war between the States was a rebellion^ the very 
matter in issue. It is asserted that a people, or 
^a constituency,' en masse, in the aggregate, lay 
behind and originated the State and Federal govern- 
ments and fused them into a nation. The production 
of the scintilla of a historical or political fact to 
sustain the assertion may be safely challenged. 
Acting as a unit, or in the aggregate, the people of 
the United States, or a constituency behind and 
below Federal and State governments, never did a 

political act, and never can, without a thorough 
10 , 



146 EEMINIScS^ES OF JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

revolution in our whole system. When and where 
did this ^constituency' ever assemble, or vote, or 
legislate, or adjudicate, or execute? The Union, as 
a government, had as its ^originating cause' the 
people of the several States, acting in their separate 
and sovereign conventions as distinct political com- 
munities. The States, acting individually, called 
the Convention of 1787, and the States, each for 
itself, binding its citizens, ratified and thus adopted 
the Constitution. Now, whether the government, 
the Union, thus constituted, the creature of the 
States, was the final judge of the extent of the 
powers granted by the States and expressed in totidem 
verbis in the Constitution, or whether the States, as 
parties to and creators of the compact, had a right 
to judge of the extent of the powers delegated and 
reserved and to protect their citizens against the 
encroachments of the Federal Government, their 
agent, is the question, not to be decided by figures of 
rhetoric or sectional prejudice, but by historical 
records and the unimpeachable antecedents to the 
formation of the Federal Government or Union. 
South Carolina held that she entered the Union 
quoad hoc, to the extent of the powers delegated in 
the Constitution. So far as related to powers re- 
served and undelegated, she was out of the Union. 
She held that the Government of the United States, 
in any or all of its departments, had no more right 



COKRECTION OF MISREPRESENTATION. 147 

to govern her, within the scope of the reserved 
powers and outside of what had been delegated, than 
had Great Britain or France, and what lawyer who 
regards the Constitution as the full grant of all the 
powers of the Federal Government can hold other- 
wise ? " 

III. The Constitution of the Confederate States 
was not the overthrow of a representative republic. 
It was the re-enactment of the Constitution of the 
United States with the Southern interpretation of 
that instrument. It was modeled on that of the 
United States ajid followed it with rigid literalness, 
except on the subject of African slavery. It sought 
to protect the rights of the States and the rights of 
the people and the rights of property against usurpa- 
tion or oppression. The most prejudiced critic will 
be unable to find clause or word hostile to any 
Northern interest. 

The New York Herald, on the 16th of March, 
1861, published the Constitution of the Confederate 
States in full, and on the 19th of March recommended 
the adoption by the United States of ^Hhis ultimatum 
of the seceded States." It said : " The new Consti- 
tution is the Constitution of the United States with 
various modifications and some very important and 
most desirable improvements. We are free to say 
that the invaluable reforms enumerated should be 
adopted by the United States, with or without a re- 



148 KEMINIsSft^ES OF JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

union of the seceded States, and as soon as possible. 
But why not accept them with the propositions of 
the Confederate States on slavery as a basis of 
reunion ? " 

IV. The Confederacy had the enthusiastic assent 
of the people of the Southern States. The votes in 
behalf of secession and of the adoption of the Con- 
stitution were deliberate and voluntary. The war 
was sustained with equal zeal and unanimity. No 
people ever endured more cheerfully such privations 
and sacrifices. Since the war, President Davis has 
been censured for not making peace. It has been 
said that he, as President and Commander-in-chief, 
knew the exhaustion of our resources, the rapidly- 
diminishing Army, the inability to sustain the terri- 
bly unequal contest. Without entering upon that 
question it may be incontestably said that it is very 
doubtful whether the States would have sanctioned 
peace without independence ; it is almost certain the 
Army would not. 

V. It is often absurdly alleged that the South 
premeditated secession and made large military 
preparations for it. The accusation is ridiculous. 
Provision for war was an impossibility. In 1860, 
war was as unanticipated as it was unwished for. One 
of the first acts of President Davis was to accredit 
Commissioners to visit Washington and use all 
honorable means for obtaining a satisfactory adjust- 



CORKECTION OF MISREPRESENTATION. I49 

ment of all questions of dispute between the two 
Governments. The Confederacy in its infancy had 
neither soldier nor seaman, neither army nor navy, 
neither revenue nor credit. It had not even the 
machinery of a well-organized general Government. 
The South had no facilities for the manufacture of 
guns or any of the munitions of war. What was 
extemporized as the nucleus for defence was pur- 
chased in Baltimore and Northern cities. The South 
fought against most unequal odds. She was con- 
quered by the avoirdupois of preponderant force, by 
a rigidly-enforced blockade, by wearing attrition, by 
a decimation of people, and never by superior valor 
or skill. She combated the public opinion of 
Europe, a powerful and well-organized Government, 
an army reenforced at will, limitless resources of 
means and money, and as much skill and courage as 
ever assembled under a nation's flag or did duty at 
a country's call. 

YI. Northern religious assemblies, newspapers, 
poets and orators indulge in much self-commenda- 
tion because of the abolition of slavery, and claim 
with much self-satisfaction that that event, which 
no one deprecates or regrets, was brought about in 
response to the demands of the Northern conscience. 
No right-thinking person will be disposed to with- 
hold from abolitionists whatever credit is due to 
them for their opinions and propagandism, but it is 



1 50 REMINIsSfiKCES OF JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

a severe and naked historical fact that a military 
necessity compelled emancipation. The document 
which " ushered in the great political regeneration of 
the American people/' using the language of Mr. 
Lincoln's biographers, was the proclamation of 
President Lincoln, declaring the freedom on 1st of 
January, 1863, "of all persons held as slaves within 
any State then in rebellion against the United 
States." Mr. Lincoln's excuse for, or vindication of, 
this exercise of power he gives himself. " As com- 
mander-in-chief of the army and the navy in the 
time of war, I suppose I have the right to take any 
measure which may best subdue the enemy. . . . 
I view the matter as a practical war measure, to be 
decided on according to the advantages or disadvan- 
tages it may offer to the suppression of the rebel- 
lion." The House of Representatives, subsequently, 
by a vote of 78 to 52, adopted a resolution that the 
policy of emancipation as indicated in the proclama- 
tion of the President, "was well- chosen as a war 
measure." 

YII. President Davis possessed a sound judgment, 
tenacity of will, tried integrity and large experience 
in that greatest of practical arts — government ; but 
the Confederacy furnished little scope for sagacious 
statesmanship. The difficulties were constant and 
incalculable, but there was never occasion for diplo- 
macy or legislative wisdom. Financial success was 



CORRECTION OF MISREPRESENTATION. 151 

beyond human attainment. From the beginning to 
the sudden collapse of the Confederacy, the question 
was one of arms, of patriotism, of patient endur- 
ance. The civil was necessarily subordinated to the 
military. How to raise troops, how arm, clothe, 
subsist, transport, officer them, how make and keep 
effective the War Department, the Commissary and 
Quartermaster Bureaux : these were the questions 
to be grappled with and they proved to be unman- 
ageable. 



OPINIONS AND IMPRESSIONS. 

BY HON. A. H. GARI.AND, 
Ex-Attorney-General of the United States. 

MY acquaintance with Mr. Davis began on the 
20th day of May, 1861, the day on which Ar- 
kansas was admitted a member of the Southern 
Confederacy. I was one of the five members from 
Arkansas to the Provisional Congress of the Confed- 
eracy, then in session at Montgomery, Ala., and we 
called upon him as President on that day, and dined 
with him at his private residence. 

He was as pleasant and affable, I think, as ever 
man was, and discussed matters freely and with deep 
concern, showing he had weighed well the great 
undertaking then upon him, and while he was cheer- 
ful and hopeful, he was thoughtful. He seemed 
especially gratified that Arkansas had joined the 
Confederacy, and his welcome to her delegation was 
cordiality itself. 

The particular question then in hand and exciting 
some feeling was, whether the seat of government 
should be transferred to Richmond, Ya. The mem- 
bers of Congress were, by no means, united on this. 
Mr. Davis favored the change, and quietly and with- 
out exhibiting any feeling on the subject gave his 

reasons for it. 
152 



OPINIONS AND IMPRESSIONS. 153 

In a few days the vote was taken and the change 
was made. The session at Montgomery soon closed, 
and Congress and the President separated, amid 
exciting scenes of preparation for the gigantic work 
before them, to meet again the following July in 
Richmond. 

At Richmond, on Sunday, the day of the first bat- 
tle of Manassas — in my memory yet, as the hottest, 
closest and most sultry day I ever saw— with two or 
three others, I called upon Mr. Davis and spent some 
little time with him. While he did not say so, yet 
he intimated important events were transpiring 
north of the capital, and in canvassing the situation 
with great self-possession, he did not conceal his 
anxiety; and sure enough, before that night the 
first step that led on almost to the change of front 
of the world had been taken. 

From this time forward being, after the termina- 
tion of the Provisional Congress, a member of the 
House of Representatives of the permanent Congress 
for nearly two terms, and a Senator just before and 
at the close of the war, I had almost daily inter- 
course with Mr. Davis, meeting him often privately, 
and frequently as one of a committee to discuss 
public measures and affairs. 

In one of those interviews he preserved that ex- 
cellence of manner and address for which he was so 
deservedly noted. With the energy of his convic- 



154 KEMKfii^NCES OF JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

tions, he would maintain his views, but not petu- 
lantly or dictatorially, and conceded the utmost lati- 
tude of opinion and expression to all. 

Mr. Davis has often been called obstinate. I 
think this is an exaggeration. That he was a man 
of deep and strong convictions, and feared not to 
express them there can be no question : that he was 
a man of great jpower of purpose is equally true, and 
I know of no one who is much account who has not 
a large share of that ; and filling the positions Mr. 
Davis did, to have been without it, one would have 
been most singularly out of place. Obstinacy im- 
plies an unyielding to reason, to argument : it is an 
accompaniment of ignorance. But Mr. Davis was, 
by no means, an ignorant man ; quite the contrary, 
he was learned and accomplished, and his was an 
intelligent decision of character. He had been, and 
was when I knew him, a close, industrious student, 
and he possessed vast, knowledge, which he could 
impart in the most felicitous manner, either by word 
or by writing. 

His political struggles in Mississippi had been 
fierce and straining to the utmost. That was the 
order of the day then and there. In that State, 
where lived probably more gifted popular orators 
than in any other State, according to population, he 
had many a hard-fought field, and there he won his 
laurels among the foremost. 



OPINIONS AND IMPRESSIONS. '155 

Probably no contest in any country was more in- 
tensely interesting and more absorbing than was his 
with Governor Foote for the Governorship of Missis- 
sippi in 1851, and probably never was a political 
conflict waged, on both sides, with more stubborn 
determination. 

The excitement went away out of and beyond the 
territory of Mississippi. Coming up the Mississippi 
river that fall just after the election, but before its 
result was generally known, on the old ^'Fannie 
Smith," one of the finest crafts that ever walked the 
waters, I heard nothing but, " What's the neics from 
the Mississipin election V till I reached Louisville, 
Ky. At every landing, from Memphis to Louisville, 
old men and old women, young men and young 
women, and boys and girls, would crowd to and upon 
the boat as she landed, until she would almost turn 
over, crying out at the top of their voices, " Who's 
elected Governor of Mississippi f " 

Passing through such struggles, he would have 
been something more than man if their impress had 
not been left upon him. Doubtless they did con- 
tribute to make firm and solid a nature already much 
self-possessed and self-reliant. 

I have spoken of him as an educated and accom- 
plished man, and in this connection I have often 
thought his State papers and his communications to 
Con-ress were models of English composition. In 



156 EEMIMS^^CES OF JEFFEKSON DAVIS. 

my opinion, in this respect they have not been ex- 
celled. 

Being a positive and direct man, he always im- 
pressed me that he was brave and courageous, and 
true to the principles he advocated. The service he 
did the Republic, and the glory he won before the 
birth of the Confederacy, entitle him to this praise. 
And I doubt not there was not an hour during the 
war between the States he would not have given up 
his life as readily as he would have put a cent in a 
charity box, if by so doing he believed he could have 
secured the independence of the Confederacy. 

His care and solicitude for the Confederate soldiers 
was manifest upon every occasion, and it was the 
genuine exhibition of a father's love for his children. 

It has been said often, that with some one else at 
the head of the Confederacy the result would have 
been different. This I do not subscribe to. Mr. 
Davis managed her affairs as well, in my judgment, 
as they could have been, and he did all for the 
people who trusted him that could have been done ; 
and he came just as near succeeding as any other 
one would who might have been in his place. 

The debate as to his true position in history will 
be long — may be endless. Certain it is, the time is 
not yet when this verdict can be made up and 
entered. Plutarch, in his essays, speaks of one 
Antiphanes, who told it, that in a certain city the 



OPINIONS AND IMPRESSIONS. 157 

cold was so intense that words were congealed as 
soon as spoken, but that after some time they thawed 
and became audible, so that words spoken in winter 
were articulated next summer. The fitting opinions 
and impressions formed of Mr. Davis may as yet be 
congealed, and be not heard, but in the softening 
influence of the future — when summer comes — they 
too may be thawed and made audible, and he will 
be ranked among the first who have figured in 
history. 



w 



MEMORIAL ADDRESS. 

BY J. RANDOI.PH TUCKKR. 

E come on the invitation of the Governor of 



the Commonwealth to join with millions in 
the South, and in union with those who at- 
tend upon the obsequies at New Orleans to do re- 
verence to the splendid name and fame of Jefferson 
Davis, the soldier, the statesman and the Christian 
patriot. We come to bury Davis — and to praise 
him. 

We will not revive the thoughts, the motives or 
the actions of a past generation, but with warm and 
honest hearts we avow, that though our Confederacy 
be buried forever, we still love and revere the truth 
and integrity, the constancy and fortitude, the honor 
and the virtues, the genius and the patriotism of the 
heroes who led and filled our armies ; and of the 
executive chieftain whose master hand directed our 
destiny in that momentous crisis. 

Jefferson Davis was born in Kentucky in 1808. I 
do not doubt that his name gave direction to his 
opinions by throwing his mind under the fascinating 
influence of Thomas Jefferson, whose writings have 
exerted so large a power over the American people. 
Mr. Jefferson in his political philosophy had 
158 



MEMOKIAL ADDRESS. 159 

evolved two ultimate principles. The first, the self- 
determinant power of the man which led him to his 
sentiment for the universal freedom of all men under 
proper conditions. The second, the self-determinant 
power of the State in the Federal Union, as essential 
to the freedom of its people from the despotism of 
centralism. 

Kentucky gave birth to two men in the early part 
of the century, Jefferson Davis and Abraham Lincoln. 
Both of these embodied the ultimate principles just 
mentioned of Mr. Jefferson, but not in like propor- 
tions. Mr. Lincoln held to unconditional emancipa- 
tion as far as political power reached, and did not 
hold the limit on power imposed by the second prin- 
ciple to the same extent or with the same tenacity 
with which it was held by Mr. Jefferson. On the 
other hand, Mr. Davis, while no doubt holding to 
the ultimate freedom of all men, recognized the con- 
ditions which environed the question, making eman- 
cipation practically difficult, and gave more force to 
them as postponing the result ; and held with uncon- 
ditional tenacity to the second principle as essential 
to the autonomy of the States of the South, and to 
the political liberty of their people. 

Young Davis went to West Point as a cadet, as 
the son of his mother Mississippi, who sent him there 
to be educated for her, upon the basis of her contri- 
bution through taxation to the expenses necessary 



160 KEMrN^I^NCES OF JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

for the support of the Military Academy. He en- 
listed in the army, and distinguished himself as a 
gallant officer in the Black Hawk war. 

As a young lieutenant, Davis won the love of the 
daughter of General Zachary Taylor, afterwards 
president of the United States. With the father's 
consent he married her, and in three months he bur- 
ied this beautiful object of his early love. The story 
of his grief and devotion to her memory, as told to 
me, shows how tender and true was this strong, brave 
man — to become in later years, as we have seen, a 
man of destiny. 

He left the army, and devoting himself to planta- 
tion life — ^that realm for thoughtful speculation and 
philosophical study with a large class of southern 
men, who have filled a conspicuous place in the his- 
tory of the country — became a close student of con- 
stitutional history and government. 

He was soon elected to the House of Representa- 
tives, but when the Mexican war broke out in 1846, 
he raised a regiment of Mississippi riflemen, took a 
distinguished part in the siege of Monterey, and 
with his regiment decided the fate of the day on 
the victorious field of Buena Yista, Feb. 22d and 
23d, 1847. 

Mississippi then sent Colonel Davis to the Senate 
of the U. S., where during the celebrated debates on 
the compromise measures of 1850 he took a promi- 



MEMORIAL ADDRESS. IGl 

nent place. It was at that time 1 first saw him, 
when he rose with brave and manly face to challenge 
to discussion the celebrated Henry Clay then as now, 
one of the most striking figures in all American his- 
tory. 

Mr. Davis was beaten by Henry S. Foote for Gov- 
ernor in 1851, and remained thereafter in private life 
until called to the War Department by President 
Pierce in March, 1853. Here he displayed great ca- 
pacity for organization, and in the administration of 
the details of the War office, of which even his ene- 
mies do not scruple to testify. 

In 1857 he returned to the Senate, where he re- 
mained until the winter of 1860-61, when Mississippi 
having seceded from the Union, Mr. Davis withdrew 
from the Senate, after delivering a valedictory ad- 
dress which produced a profound impression upon his 
audience, and upon the public at large. 

In February, 1861, he was called to be President 
of the Confederate States of America, and so contin- 
ued to be until the surrender of the Confederate 
armies in April, 1865. In May of that year he was 
captured and was closely confined until 1867 in For- 
tress Monroe, when he was released on Haheas Cor- 
pus on application to the United States Court. 

It is a pleasure to announce that while the conduct 

of that proceeding was directed by the pre-eminent 

counsellor, Charles O'Connor, of New York, the 
11 



162 BEMINWilJIJfCES OF JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

honor of being associated with him was shared in a 
subordinate position by me. After his release, the 
first use of his freedom manifests the tenderness of 
the father's heart ; he and Mrs. Davis went to visit 
and to dress the grave of the young son they had 
lost during the war. 

He went back to his home. He was never tried 
— he was never re-arrested. He asked not for a re- 
moval of his political disabilities. They were never 
removed. 

During the years which have passed since his re- 
lease, Mr. Davis has written a very able and valuable 
history of the Confederate States, in which there is 
a disquisition on the constitutional questions involved 
in their secession from the Union. And thus, with^ 
drawn from public observation, he has lived at his 
home, until at the age of 81 years, he closed his life 
on the 6th inst., in New Orleans. 

After this epitome of his life the question presses 
for answer, why do we join in this tribute to his 
memory ? 

Several answers may be given. 

First, he was in himself worthy of our admiration 
and esteem. He had a splendid intellect, keen and 
critical in insight, and profound and diligent in re- 
search. Bold in conception, he was logical in pro- 
cess. A philosophical thinker on the highest prob- 
lems of Political Science, he had in a high degree 



MEMORIAL ADDRESS. 163 

the practical sense for the administration of public 

affairs. 

In the Senate, standing erect in mind and person, 
as a champion of the truth, he flung down the gage 
of battle in the arena of debate with a courage as 
heroic as his courtesy was knightly. His will was 
guided by convictions— the deepest convictions. He 
had, it is true, his prejudices and his preferences. 
His judgment, despite these, was sound and reliable, 
though not infallible. His soul was the seat of 
honor and chivalry. He was true to friends, and 
firm and resolute to foes. His affections were ardent, 
his impulses noble, his motives pure, and his faith in 
God fixed, humble and sincere. 
' 2. Again, we owe him reverence, for Davis was 
the heroic friend of the South Land. He did not 
seek her archonship, it sought him. He heard her 
clarion call and he obeyed it with a religious purpose 
to save her liberty in the new Confederacy. Among 
all her men, he seemed to have the combination of 
qualities which best fitted him for the service. 

He had experience in statesmanship, practical 
knowledge of affairs, eloquence, logic and personal 
magnetism; and a resolution which could not be 
turned aside, and a will which would not yield to 
fear, and which could not be seduced by policy or 
personal interest. Take him as civilian and soldier, 
as orator and logician, as statesman and popular 



164 EEMINl'SCllilCES OF JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

leader, as a judicious counsellor and the possessor of 
an aggressive and unbending^ will ; I think it may 
be said that none of his contemporaries equaled him 
in the entireness of his manhood, though many ex- 
celled him in some one of his wonderful gifts. If he 
failed, who could have succeeded ? If he made mis- 
takes, which one of his contemporaries would have 
made less in number or less in degree ? This much 
is undoubtedly true, Jefferson Davis heroically main- 
tained the principles for which the South contended, 
with an eye that never quailed, with a cheek that 
never blanched, a step that never faltered, a courage 
that never flinched, a fortitude that never failed, a 
fidelity that even captivity could not repress, and 
with a tjonstancy even unto death ! For four years 
without commerce or national recognition; with a 
government new and imperfectly organized ; with 
army and navy to be raised ; with Department of 
War and bureaux of war supplies to be improvised ; 
with scarcely one-half the numbers of its foe and less 
than half the resources, the Confederacy under his 
leadership, and with the genius of its military and 
naval heroes, upheld a conflict which was the mira- 
cle of the age in which it occurred, and will be the 
romance of the future historian. It is true the Con- 
federacy went down below the horizon of history 
forever, and its name as a nation is efiaced from the 
page of human annals for all time to come ; yet the 



MEMORIAL ADDRESS. 165 

cheeks of our children will not blush for its fate, but 
will flush with pride and admiration, as they hear 
the tale of the patience, constancy and fortitude, the 
adventurous daring, and heroism, the genius of 
leadership, and the victories of their noble fathers. 

Our Confederacy sank in sorrow, but not in shame. 
Dark and gloomy clouds gathered in heavy folds 
around its setting, but they did not — they could not 
blacken it ! It lit them into effulgence with its own 
transcendent glory. 

3. But again, Jefferson Davis deserves our rever- 
ence because he has stood for a quarter of a century 
in our place. He endured a cruel captivity for two 
years, and for the residue of that time has been the 
- vicarious victim of obloquy and reproach due to us 
all, and heaped upon him alone by the press and 
people of the North. His fortitude and devotion to 
truth never failed. He endured not in silence, but 
with a protest which history has recorded, and will 
preserve as an emphatic vindication of the Confed- 
eracy which had perished, from malign aspersions on 
the motives of its friends, on the origin and causes 
of its formation and on the purposes of justice and 
liberty, which inspired those who died in its defence, 
or who survived to illustrate its principles in doing 
the duties, public and private, which God in his 
providence assigned them to perform. He died a 
citizen of Mississippi and of the United States, and 



166 KEMINISS^JJCES OF JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

under disability to hold office under the government 
of the United States. He desired no place; why 
should he ? He had filled his place in the temple of 
fame and in the domain of history. In personal 
dignity, and in the peace of God, he lived and died. 
What artificial disability could taint his real nature ? 
Why seek to remove it? He had made an heroic 
and honest effort to give freedom and independence 
to the South and had failed. God's will be done ! 
He chose the sacred retirement of home, its charms 
of family and friends, of calm and philosophical re- 
flection and study, and waited with firm reliance on 
divine goodness for the last summons, which comes 
to him who has humbly but bravely, conscientiously, 
and with undaunted courage and patience, done his 
duty, as he saw it, to truth, to his country and to 
God! 

" Whether on cross uplifted high, 
Or in the battle's van ; 
The fittest place for man to die, 
Is where he dies for man ! " 

Virginia ! Rockbridge ! Lexington ! ever keeping 
guard over the holy dust of Lee and Jackson, turn 
aside to-day with millions of your countrymen; 
with mournful reverence and tender hearts to twine 
a wreath of martial glory and weave a chaplet of 
civic fame, to rest upon the tomb of Jefferson 
Davis ! In a peculiar sense the fate of our Confed- 



EULOGY ON JEFFERSON DAVIS. 167 

eracy is recalled to-day. On its grave — finally 
closed -this hour — will be inscribed in imperishable 
characters the immortal name of the martial civilian 
who was its first, its only President. We plant 
flowers about it and water them with our tears, not 
hoping for, or as emblems of its anticipated resur^ 
rection, but to embalm it in our fragrant memories 
and in our most precious affections. And then, 
turning from the ashes of our dead past to the ac^ 
tive duty dictated by the example and counsels of 
our departed leaders, Albert Sidney Johnston, Stone- 
wall Jackson, Robert E. Lee and Jefierson Davis, 
we will labor with a fidelity wrought by the stern 
but noble discipline of our past experience, for the 
maintenance of the constitutional liberty, they im- 
perilled their lives to save, and for the promotion of 
the true prosperity, progress and glory of our com- 
mon country. 



JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

BY HON. G. G. VKST, 
United States Senator from Missouri. 

WITH the multitude, "success is the criterion 
of merit." When the Confederate Armies 
surrendered their battle flags, they surren- 
dered also the history of their heroic struggle 
against the overwhelming numbers hurled upon 
them. It is not meant by this that the record of 
battles, campaigns and sieges became the property 
of the victors, but only that the outside world can 
never know the motives of the vanquished, their 
devotion to what they believed to be the right, 
their heroism during the long, dark years of that 
bloody struggle, when the prejudices of the civil- 
ized world were arrayed against their cause, and 
the mercenaries of every land swelled the armies 
of their adversary. The cause of the Confederate 
States was under the ban of Christendom, because 
identified with African slavery. It was useless 
then, and it is useless now, to attempt an expla- 
nation to foreigners, the masses of whom are un- 
acquainted with our institutions and their history, 

and whose educated men even are imperfectly in- 
168 



JEFFERSON DAVIS. 169 

formed as to the autonomy of our Government, of 
the fundamental and radical difference of Constitu- 
tional construction which began with the adoption 
of the Constitution in 1789, and culminated in 
Civil War. The world is too busy for such discus- 
sion, and results alone are regarded. 

No one, amongst public men, knew so well the 
odds in favor of the United States and against the 
Confederacy, in the event of war, as did Jefferson 
Davis. He was an educated soldier, and had dis- 
tinguished himself upon the battle-field and as Sec- 
retary of War. He was a statesman, earnest, la- 
borious and unwearying in the examination of 
public questions and the resources of every section. 
His service in the Senate and Cabinet, and the at- 
trition of debate with the ablest minds, gave him 
accurate information of the military strength of 
both North and South. His intellect was acute, 
well-trained and untiring. He was cool, deliberate, 
without the passion that clouds reason, and cau- 
tious in all his conclusions. The fierce excitement 
aroused by sectional controversy did not hurry him 
into secession ; but he went with his people, believ- 
ing they were right, and prepared for any fate. 

Mr. Davis believed that the North had resolved 
upon the invasion and destruction of Constitutional 
guarantees, upon which rested the property rights, 
social life, and even the autonomy of the Southern 



170 EEMI^TStKJ^CES OF JEFFEKSON DAVIS. 

States. In his deliberate judgment the election of 
Mr. Lincoln to the Presidency upon the sectional 
basis of opposition to slave property, meant that the 
South must submit to politica) degradation and dis- 
honor, or sever their connection with the Union, 
and face the result. 

He knew that the South was not alone responsi- 
ble for African slavery, but that the North had 
clung to it until slavery had ceased to be profitable. 
He knew that in the formation of the Constitution 
the New England States had agreed to the extension 
of the slave trade, in order to secure the navigation 
laws which they considered vitally important to 
their commerce. 

With this knowledge he resented with all the 
vehemence of a strong and manly nature the 
hypocritical pretence that "slavery was a cove- 
nant with death, — a league with hell," and that 
the Northern conscience could not longer tolerate 
its existence. 

His intelligence discerned clearly the true intent, 
partially concealed, in the avowal that slavery would 
not . be attacked in the States, but could not be 
extended to other territory. He had been taught 
by history that sentimental and sectional fanaticism 
would never stop until all its objects were accom- 
plished, and he understood the full force of the fren- 
zied appeal to the Northern people, " that slavery 



JEFFERSON DAVIS. 171 

must be surrounded by a cordon of fire until, like a 
viper, it stung itself to death." 

Mr. Davis knew, as did every reflecting man not 
an unreasoning optimist, that the election of Lin- 
coln meant to the South degradation or war. 
The idle talk of fighting in the Union, and under 
the flag, did not touch his knowledge that the real 
Union had disappeared with the supremacy of a 
party based upon the idea of destroying the property 
rights of the people in fifteen States. 

With these opinions and convictions Jefferson 
Davis gave himself unreservedly, heart, soul and 
brain, to the cause of his people. 

It was his ardent wish to serve in the field, for he 
was by instinct and training a soldier, but he was 
called to the Presidency of the infant republic, and, 
with full knowledge of the terrible task, accepted it 
with solemn and earnest purpose. 

To those who have no knowledge of the inner life 
of the Confederate Government, it is difiicult to 
convey even an inadequate idea of the difficulties 
which confronted the President of the Confederate 
States. 

The Southern people, brave and devoted, were im- 
petuous, untrained, and unprepared for war. Their 
leaders in political life were men of great, but irregu- 
lar talents, ambitious, fierce and intractable. Their 
ideas of war were crude and impracticable. In the 



172 KEMIlSISii^CES OF JEFFEKSON DAVIS. 

matter of supplies, so absolutely necessary to mili- 
tary success, they had been taught by De-Bow's 
Review that " Cotton was king," and that a cotton 
famine in Europe would force England and the great 
Continental powers to interfere in behalf of the Con- 
federate States. As this dream vanished, and all the 
horrors of war came nearer to the homes and hearts 
of the Southern people, as their finances became 
disordered, their supplies exhausted, and the ranks 
of their armies thinned by disease and death, dema- 
gogues and traitors, jealous rivals, and half-hearted 
friends turned against the head of the government, 
and charged the mass of accumulating misfortune 
to his evil and malign influence. He was accused of 
prejudice, nepotism, kingly ambition, and as the 
sound of hostile guns came nearer and nearer to the 
beleaguered capital of the Confederacy, the louder 
swelled the clamor of this discordant and malignant 
disaffection. 

Collected and calm, unmoved by misfortune, un- 
vexed by accusation, Jefferson Davis discharged the 
trust 3:-eposed in him by the Southern people, with 
the heroic and sublime devotion of a martyr. 

That he made many mistakes is but to admit that 
he was mortal. That his confidence was often 
abused, and the conclusions he reached erroneous, no 
one will deny who knows the truth; but amidst 
unparalleled difficulty and danger, surrounded by 



JEFFEKSON DAVIS. I73 

perils within and without, the loyalty of Jefferson 
Davis to the Southern cause was never doubted by 
even his most unrelenting foes. 

When the end came, and all the vials of the vic- 
tor s wrath were emptied upon his devoted head, 
insulted and outraged, manacled in a felon cell, and 
watched by night and day, as if a wild beast, his 
splendid courage and unshrinking heroism brought 
the tears to even manhood's eyes throughout the 
world, and shamed the coward pack that hounded 
him. 

At last there came an hour in which he met his 
accusers face to face in a Court of Justice and dared 
them to the worst. Serene and inflexible, he stood 
before the tribunal an incarnation of constancy and 
fortitude. In his person, resolute and uncomplaining, 
submissive to the will of God, but cringing not to 
mortal man, the South had its noblest type of man- 
hood. He was its true representative, and every 
insult, every sorrow, every pang endured by him 
thrilled and touched every Southern heart. 

Amidst the flowers of the South, where the moan- 
ing gulf sobs its requiem for the glorious dead, 
Jefferson Davis passed the closing years of a life 
which will cause for centuries both the severest 
criticism and the most touching devotion. The 
events in his career are too recent, the colors now 
too vivid, for the purpose of impartial judgment. 



174 REMI^TSiBNCES OF JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

The time will come when all will see in the 
Southern leader that one great quality, which in all 
climes and ages has commanded the admiration of 
mankind, — constant, unyielding, uncompromising ad- 
herence to what he believed a just cause. 

To the Southern people there will be no change in 
love and reverence for one who never faltered in his 
love for them. 

Through all the ages, until constancy, courage and 
honest purpose become valueless among men, the 
flowers will be heaped by loving hands upon his 
grave. 



MEMORIAL ADDRESS. 

BY RKV. MOSEYS HOGB, D.D. 

SOMEWHAT wearied, as I am, with the number 
of special servi-ces which have devolved on me 
of late, it was my desire and effort to be relieved 
of the one now assigned to me. But the constraint 
laid on me to perform it was one I could not proper- 
ly resist. I have probably been called to undertake 
this office because I am one of the few pastors in this 
city who resided here during the Civil War, and be- 
cause circumstances brought me into personal asso- 
ciation with the President of the conquered Confed- 
eracy. I heard his first address to the Richmond 
people from the balcony of Spotswood Hotel, 
after the removal of the capital from Montgomery. 
I stood beneath the ominous clouds, in the dismal 
rain of that memorable day, the 2 2d of February, 
1862, when, from the platform erected near the 
Washington monument in the Capitol Square, after 
prayer by Bishop Johns, he delivered his inaugural 
address, in clear but gravely modulated tones. I 
have ridden with him on horseback along the lines 
of fortification which guarded the city. I have had 
experiences of his courtesy in his house and in his 
office. I was with him in Danville after the evacu- 

175 



176 KEMInTS^IH^CES of JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

ation, until the surrender at Appomattox Court- 
house ; and while I never aspired to intimacy with 
him, my opportunities were such as enabled me to 
learn the personal traits which characterized him as 
a man, as well as the official and public acts which 
marked his administration and which now form a 
part of the history of the country. 

And now permit me to say a word with regard to 
the kind of service which I deem appropriate to the 
hour and to the place where we meet. 

This is a memorial service, and not an occasion for 
the discussion of topics which would be appropriate 
elsewhere and at another time. 

Every congregation assembled in our churches in 
these Southern States to-day forms a part of the vast 
multitude which unites in mind and heart with the 
solemn assembly in New Orleans, where, in the 
presence of the dead, the funeral services are in pro- 
gress at this hour. There, all that is most tender 
and most impressive centres, and it becomes all who 
compose those outlying congregations to feel and act 
in sympathy with what is now passing in the sad 
but queenly city which guards the gates of the Mis- 
sissippi, in the church draped in sable, and where 
the bereaved sit beside the pall with hearts filled 
with a sorrow which no outward emblems of mourn- 
ing can express. 

If we place ourselves in S3nnpathy with the emo- 



MEMOKIAL SERVICES. 177 

tions which concentre there, and which radiate to 
the wide circumference of the most distant congre- 
gations uniting in these obsequies, then how evident 
it is that political harangues and discussions calcu- 
lated to excite sectional animosities are utterly 
inappropriate to the hour. It is not the office of 
the minister of religion to deal controversially with 
the irritating subjects which awaken party strife. 
It is his duty and privilege to soften asperities, to 
reconcile antagonistic elements, to plead for mutual 
forbearance, to urge such devotion to the common 
weal as to bring all the people. North, South, East 
and West, into harmonious relations with each 
other, so as to combine all the resources of the entire 
country into unity of effort for the welfare of the 
whole. I trust this will be the tone and spirit of 
all the addresses made in the churches to-day 
throughout the South ; and may I not hope that 
as there are no geographical boundaries to the quali- 
ties which constitute noble manhood, such as courage, 
generosity, fortitude, and personal honor, there will 
be many in the Northern and Western States who 
will be in sympathy with the eulogies which will 
be pronounced to-day by the speakers who hold up 
to view those characteristics of their dead chieftain 
which have always commanded the admiration of 
right-minded and right-hearted men in all lands and 

in all centuries. 
12 



178 EEMIIfii^NCES OF JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

The day is coming when the question will not 
relate so much to the color of the uniform, blue or 
gray, as to the character of the men who wore it ; 
when the question will be, who were most loyal to 
what they believed to be duty, who were most 
dauntless in danger, who most sublime in self-sacri- 
fice, who illustrated most splendidly the ideal of the 
patriot soldier? 

Before the commencement of the strife which 
ended in the dismemberment of the Union, all 
men familiar with the life of Mr. Davis, whether 
as a cadet at West Point, as a soldier in 
the Mexican war, as the Governor of his adopted 
State, or as a member of the Senate of the 
United States, agree in regarding him as entitled 
to the reputation he won as a gallant officer and a 
patriotic statesman. After the organization of the 
Southern Confederacy, whatever conflicting views 
men may entertain with regard to the righteousness 
of the part he took in its formation, or as to the 
wisdom of his course as its Chief Magistrate, all 
alike admit the sincerity and the courage of his 
convictions, and the indomitable resolution with 
which he carried out his plans, with a decision that 
nothing could shake, and with a devotion that 
sought nothing for self, but everything for the 
success of the cause to which he had consecrated 
his life. 



MEMORIAL SERVICES. 179 

This leads to the inquiry as to the qualities and 
attributes which constitute the patriot statesman, 
the statesman needed for all time, but more espe- 
cially for our own day and country. The opinion 
has been recently expressed by men whose words 
have great weight, that our legislative bodies should 
be composed for the most part of practical business 
men, thoroughly acquainted with the trade, the 
commerce, and the financial interests of the coun- 
try. With a single qualification, no one will con- 
trovert the truth of that statement, but taken alone, 
it is an imperfect enunciation of the requirements 
of legislation. Associated with men, no matter how 
conversant with the commercial interests of the 
country, we need legislators who are profound 
students of history, jpliilosophy and ethics ; men who 
have had time and opportunities for ttought and 
for the thorough investigation of the principles of 
government. I heard Lord Palmers ton say in the 
speech he delivered at his inauguration as Lord 
Rector of the University of Glasgow that the differ- 
ence between the statesmen of Great Britain and 
France was owing to the fact that the latter had 
been trained only in the exact sciences, while the 
former had been drilled in metaphysics and moral 
philosophy ; and the result was, that while French 
legislative assemblies had been filled with brilliant 
politicians, the British Parliament had been graced 



180 REMINlSCftNCES OF JEFFEESON DAVIS. 

and dignified by men of the stamp of Burke and 
Chatham and Fox and Peel .and Canning. 

Who were the men who framed the government 
under which we live? Who wrote the masterly 
state papers which excited the wonder and admira- 
tion of the best thinkers of the old world ? Who 
wrote the Declaration of Independence and the 
Constitution^ which brought into union the inde- 
pendent colonial sovereignties ? Who built up our 
system of Jurisprudence, combining the merits of 
Roman civil law and English common law? All 
of them students ; men who, under the shade of their 
ancestral trees, in the retirement of their Southern 
country homes, had spent their lives in profound 
researches into the principles upon which just gov- 
ernment is founded, and then were capable of 
elaborating and bringing into successful operation 
the wisest form of government the world ever knew. 
Never were statesmen of this type so much needed 
in our national councils as now. 

Then I add, the statesman required for the times 
is one who has the courage and the ability to lead 
public opinion in ways that are right, instead of 
waiting to ascertain the popular drift, no matter 
how base, that he may servilely follow it. Unlike 
the popularity hunter, who never asks what is just, 
but what is politic, and then trims his sails so as to 
catch every breeze of public favor, the upright 



MEMORIAL SERVICES. / 181 

statesman, with the deep conviction that nothing 
that is morally wrong can be politically right, steers 
directly for the port of duty along a line in which no 
deflection can be traced, and holds his course in the 
very teeth of the gale. While the demagogue dares 
attempt nothing, no matter how noble, which might 
endanger his popularity, the patriot statesman, 
when assailed by obloquy, is not greatly troubled 
thereby, but calmly waits for the verdict of time, 
the great vindicator. 

When the path of duty becomes the path of 
danger, the upright statesman is not intimidated, 
but remains firm as the rock in mid-ocean, against 
which the invading waves beat only to be shivered 
into spray. While the tricky demagogue spends 
all his energies in directing the tactics of a party, 
the broad-minded statesman aspires to build up a 
noble commonwealth, and rises above all that is 
selfish and mean, because the ends he aims at are 
those of country, God and truth. Men of great 
gifts often fail in public life because they lack the 
moral basis on which character alone can stand. 
After all, integrity is one of the strongest of living 
forces ; and what the people seek when their rights 
are imperilled is not so much for men of brilliant 
talents as for leaders whose chief characteristics are 
untarnished honor, incorruptible honesty, and the 
courage to do right at any hazard. 



182 * KEMmlS^WIirCES OF JEFFEKSON DAVIS. 

It is admitted that even such men sometimes fail 
to secure the triumph of th^ cause for which they 
toil and make every sacrifice ; but the very failures 
of such men are nobler than the success of the unprin- 
cipled intriguer. Reproach, persecution, .misrepre- 
sentation and poverty have often been the fate of those 
who have suffered the loss of all for the right and 
true ; but they are not dishonored because the igno- 
ble do not appreciate their character, aims and efforts. 

** Count me o'er earth's chosen heroes ; they were souls that stood alone ; 
While the men they agonized for, hurled the contumelious stone." 

Our admiration is more due to him who pursues 
the course he thinks right, in spite of disaster, than 
to one who succeeds by methods which reason and 
conscience condemn. Defeat is the discipline which 
often trains the heroic soul to its noblest develop- 
ment. And when the conviction comes that he has 
struggled in vain, and must now yield to the inevi- 
table, then he may, without shame, lay down his 
armor in the assurance that others will rise up and 
put it on, and in God's good time vindicate the 
principles which must ultimately triumph. 

Another of the lessons we learn from the eventful 
life just terminated is the emptiness and vanity of 
earthly glory, if it be the only prize for which the 
soul has contended. " As for man, his days are as 
grass. He cometh forth like a flower ; in the morn- 



MEMOKIAL SERVICES. 183 

ing it groweth up and nourisheth : in the evening it 
is cut down and withereth. Surely man at his best 
estate is altogether vanity." Wealth, honor, power, 
military renown, popularity, the constituent elements 
of what men call glory, how evanescent they are, 
and how unsatisfactory while they continue ! What 
is earthly glory ? It is the favor of the fickle mul- 
titude, the transient homage of the hour, the ap- 
plause of the populace, dying away with the breath 
that fills the air with its empty clamor. Oftentimes 
its most impressive emblem is the bloody banner 
whose tattered folds bear mournful evidence of the 
price at which victory is won. It is the mouldering 
hatchment which hangs above the tomb of the dead 
warrior. It is the posthumous renown which stirs 
not one sweet emotion in the heart which lies still 
and chill in the coffin, and whose music never pene- 
trates the dull cold ear of death. What is earthly 
glory ? Listen ; " All flesh is as grass, and all the 
glory of man as the flower of the grass ; the grass 
withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away ; " 
" the wind passeth over it and it is gone." 

We are told that when Massillon pronounced one 
of those wonderful discourses which placed him in 
the first rank of pulpit orators he found himself in 
a church surrounded by the trappings and pageants 
of a royal funeral. The church was not only hung 
with black drapery, but the light of day was ex- 



184 KEMINl3^Ht3ES OF JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

eluded, and only a few dim tapers burned on the 
altar. The beauty and chivalry of the land were 
spread out before him. The members of the royal 
family sat beneath him, clothed in the habiliments 
of mourning. There was silence — a breathless sus-' 
pense. No sound broke the awful stillness. Mas- 
sillon arose. His hands were folded on his bosom ; 
his eyes were lifted to heaven; utterance seemed 
impossible. Presently his fixed look was unbent, 
his eye roved over the scene where every pomp was 
displayed, where every trophy was exhibited. That 
eye found no resting place amid all this idle parade 
and mocking vanity. At length it settled on the 
bier on which lay dead royalty, covered with a pall. 
A sense of the indescribable nothingness of man at 
his best estate, overcame him. His eyes once more 
closed ; his very breath seemed suspended, until, in 
a scarce audible voice, he startled the deep silence 
with the words : 

"There is Nothing Great but God." 

To-day, my hearers, we are warned that pallid 
death knocks with impartial hand at all doors. He 
enters, with equal freedom, the dwelling of the 
humblest citizen and the mansion of senator, sage 
and chieftain. He lays peasant and president side 
by side, to repose in the silent, all-summoning 
cemetery. 



MEMORIAL SERVICES. 185 

" The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, 

And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave, 
Await alike the inevitable hour ; 
The path of glory leads but to the grave." 

There is nothing great but God ; there is nothing 
solemn but death ; there is nothing momentous but 
judgment. 

Finally, every life which is not made a preparation 
for the eternal future is a comedy, in folly — a tragedy, 
in fact. No matter how splendid its success, the 
life itself and all its possessions are temporary. 
They are like the dissolving views of the panorama. 
Pietro de Medici commanded Michael Angelo to 
fashion a statue of snow. Think of such a man 
spending his time and splendid talents in shaping 
a snow image ! But men who devote all their time 
and talents to temporal things, no matter how 
noble, are modeling and moulding with snow. " He 
builds too low who builds beneath the skies." He 
who expects an enduring portion from anything 
lower than the skies, from anything less stable than 
the heavens, from anything less sufficient than God, 
is doomed to disappointment. The man with a 
mortal body inhabited by an immortal spirit, drift- 
ing to the eternal future without preparation for it, 
is like a richly freighted ship sailing round and 
round on an open sea, bound to no port, and which, 
by and by, goes down in darkness and storm. 



186 EEMINl5t^Mit)ES OF JEFFEESON DAVIS. 

Very different was the course and conduct of the 
man for whom these Southern States are to-day 
paying the last sad rites of respect and affection. 
His life was one of intense occupation. Much of it 
was absorbed with exciting, exacting, earthly du- 
ties ; but in the midst of the pressure and distrac- 
tion to which he was subjected, he remembered 
what time was made for; he remembered the 
endless life that follows this transient life. Very 
beautiful was the testimony of one of the most 
eminent of our Southern statesmen, whose own 
departure from the earth was both a tragedy and 
a triumph, when he said : " I knew Jefferson Davis 
as I knew few men. I have been near him in his 
public duties ; I have seen him by his private fire- 
side ; I have witnessed his humble, Christian devo- 
tions, and I challenge history when I say no people 
were ever led through a stormy struggle ,by a 
purer patriot, and the trials of public life never 
revealed a purer or more beautiful Christian char- 
acter." 

Oh ! great is the contrast between the hopes and 
prospects of the worldling and those of the humble 
believer. The Duke of Marlborough, in his last 
illness, was carried to an apartment which con- 
tained a picture of one of his great battles. He 
gazed at it awhile, then exclaimed : " Ah ! the 
Duke was something then, but now he is a dying 



MEMOKIAL SERVICES. 



187 



man." The Christian is something when he is 
dying. " His life is hid with Christ in God." 

The closing scenes in the life of Mr. Davis were 
marked by fortitude, by the gentle courtesy which 
never forsook him, and, above all, by sublime 
though simple trust in. the all-sufficient Saviour. 
While the outward man was perishing, the inward, 
man was renewed day by day. 

As the sculptor chips off the fragments of mar- 
ble out of which he is chiseling a statue, the de- 
crease of the marble only marks the development 
of the statue. 

" The more the marble wastes, 
The more the statue grows." 

So it is with the spirit preparing to take its 
flight from the decaying vesture of the flesh to the 
place where it shall be both clothed and crowned. 

Such are some of the impressive lessons of the 
hour, and if duly heeded, this solemnity, instead 
of being a mere decorous compliance with an exe- 
cutive summons, will be a preparation for the time 
when we shall follow our departed chief, and take 
our places among those who nobly fought and 
grandly triumphed. And then, as now, will we 
sing. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and 
to the Holy Ghost. As it was in the beginning, 
is now, and ever shall be, world without end. 
Amen. 



EX PRESIDENT DAVIS IN TEXAS IN 1875. 

BY KX-GOVERNOR F. R. I.UBBOCK, 
Who accompanied him through the State. 

FROM the day that Mr. Davis was released 
from prison by the United States Government 
the people of Texas were solicitous to have 
him pay them a visit. They were not moved by 
idle curiosity ; they were anxious to show the love 
and respect they bore him. This kindly feeling 
and respect was fully reciprocated by him. He 
knew them as brave soldiers in the early settlement 
of the republic; he had witnessed their gallantry in 
the war between the United States and Mexico, and 
later, in the war between the States, and thus 
drawn towards them, he invariably replied to their 
solicitations that as soon as a favorable opportunity 
offered he would visit the people he had ever held 
in such high regard. Finally, in May, 1875, a 
committee of citizens invited him to visit the State 
during the fair at Houston. The following charac- 
teristic reply was received : 

ViCKSBURG, Miss., 5th May, 1875. 
My Dear Sir: I am engaged here on a matter 
of much importance to me, and of no little com- 
188 



EX-PRESIDENT DAVIS IN TEXAS IN 1875. 189 

plexity. If it is possible for me to arrange matters 
so that I can leave, it will give me sincere pleasure 
to meet the good people of Texas, whose kindness 
impresses me with heartfelt gratitude. 

As heretofore, I am compelled to say. Do not 
expect me, but if I do not go, the regret will surely 
be deeper on my part than I can suppose it will be 
on that of others. 

As ever, truly your friend, 

Jefferson Davis. 

Col. F. R. Lubbock. 

He came, however, on a very short notice to the 
committee. He was received at Galveston with 
marked attention and respect, although he arrived 
on Sunday, and attended divine services at the 
Episcopal Church during the day. 

The next morning he proceeded to Houston. The 
•notice of his coming was very short, but thousands 
thronged the city to meet their illustrious ex-Presi- 
dent, and never was an arrival marked by stronger 
demonstrations of love and affection from a people. 
His address at the fair grounds captured his hearers, 
old and young. The Association of Veterans of the 
Texas Revolution were present. He spoke to them 
specially, and the old men grew wild at his magnifi- 
cent tribute to them, as he enumerated the wonder- 
ful results they had achieved in giving to the 
country the great State of Texas. 



190 EEMmi9«^g£ES 



OF JEFFERSON DAVIS. 



A very touching incident occurred while he was 
still in that city. The survivors of the "Davis 
Guards," a company composed entirely of Irishmen, 
desired to call on him in a body. He accorded to 
them an interview. The writer of this, with a few 
other citizens, were present. It was a scene never 
to be forgotten. He made them a short speech, in 
which he referred to their brave conduct in defence 
of their adopted State. That gallant band of warm 
hearts and strong arms each and every one shook 
the hand of their President, as they called him, and 
not a dry eye was there among all those sturdy men 
as they parted from him. This company of forty- 
two volunteers is mentioned in Davis' "Rise and 
Fall of the Confederate States," vol. i., p. 236-24 0, 
as having performed one of the greatest feats during 
the entire war, resulting in saving Texas from inva- 
sion and probable devastation. 

The people appeared loath to part with him, but 
he had to journey on. In passing through the 
country to Austin at every town and station the 
citizens assembled in great numbers, and as he 
would appear upon the platform of the car in 
response to their call, great cheering and hearty 
greetings came from an admiring people. The train 
was behind time in reaching Austin, the capital of 
Texas. It was raining, but men, women and chil- 
dren stood where they had been for hours. They 



EX-PRESIDENT DAVIS IN TEXAS IN 1875. 191 

had improvised torch-lights and waited for the train 
that they might obtain a glimpse of their loved chief. 
He was received by the military and escorted to his 
quarters, where he was met by the Governor of the 
State and others. 

The next day thousands of men, women and chil- 
dren called to shake his hand and tell him how they 
honored and loved him. While at the seat of gov- 
ernment he had every attention that could be shown 
him. His reception in Austin will never be forgot- 
ten, even by the little children that took part in it. 

The people having heard of his coming, his trip 
from Austin to Dallas was like a triumphal proces- 
sion ; never before or since has such an outpouring 
of the people been seen in Texas. 

Arriving at Dallas he was received by the mili- 
tary, the civic associations and an immense con- 
course of people, and his stay while in that city was 
one continued ovation. Men, women and children 
were never satisfied until they had an opportunity 
of seeing their honored guest, and mothers were 
proud to have him lay his hands upon their children 
by way of recognition. 

The people from every part of the State were 
sending committees for him to visit their particular 
section or town. He, however, found it necessary, 
from constant excitement and fatigue, to leave for 
his home in Memphis. On his way thither, at Mar- 



192 EEMINBa^ljm^ES OF JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

shall, Texas, he was accorded the same hearty 
welcome and complimentary attentions that had 
been given him during his entire journey through 
the country. 

In fact, he was entertained and honored through- 
out the State more like a victorious general passing 
through the country on a triumphal march after 
winning great battles, than a disfranchised citizen, 
the representative of a lost cause, with no emolu- 
ments or gifts to bestow, nothing being left to him 
but his honor, his great brain, and his true and 
noble heart beating and hoping for the prosperity of 
his people. 

After he had passed the borders of the State he 
was quite exhausted from his extended travel and 
handshaking. This trip made a lasting impression 
upon him. He loved to dwell on his visit to the 
Lone Star State, and the welcome he received while 
there. It was the first really grand ovation that 
had been given him after the surrender of the armies 
of the Confederate States. My heart beats proudly 
when I think my State should be the first to 
publicly honor a man, not for his successes and the 
honors he had to bestow, but for the cause he repre- 
sented and his own personal worth. 

Moreover, during his stay with us offers came 
from various localities tendering him a suitable and 
comfortable home if he would but consent to remain 



EX-PRESIDENT DAVIS IN TEXAS IN 1875. I93 

or return to the State. These offers he politely 
declined, as he had previously those of 'the same 
character from other States. 

Of late years he had many pressing invitations to 
visit Texas again. Circumstances prevented his 
coming. 

Now never again will we have the honor of his 
presence. We have draped our State in mourning 
and tolled our bells, and pronounced thousands of 
funeral orations, and laid away, amid our tears, what 
is mortal of him. His burning words of wisdom, 
his admirable example, his noble deeds, all are im- 
mortal, and will abide with us forever. 
13 



REMINISCENCE. 

BY GKNKRAI, A. R. LAWTON, 

Ex-Minister to Russia and Quartermaster-General of the Confederate Army. 

DISABILITIES and hindrances beyond my con- 
trol have prevented me from responding favor- 
ably to a flattering request by the editors and 
publishers to prepare an article for the " Life and 
Reminiscences of Jefferson Davis." But now that I 
am kindly urged to do so, I cannot refrain from the 
attempt, at the last moment, to pay a short tribute 
to one I so honored and loved while living, that I 
cling to the memory of his virtues and his services, 
now that he is in his grave. 

Perhaps I can best serve the cause of truth and 
justice by a plain, unvarnished statement of some 
things which I had exceptionally good opportuni- 
ties to observe, as to the ability, character, conduct 
and temper of Mr. Davis, especially as they affect 
official people and public affairs. 

My first acquaintance with Mr. Davis was in the 
summer of 1854, when he was Secretary of War. 
I was sent to Washington, with the Mayor of Sa- 
vannah, to secure the use of Oglethorpe Barracks 
for the police force of the city. We were warned 
that our mission would probably be fruitless, but it 
194 




JEFFERSON DAVIS AND THE CONFEDERATE GL.,L..,VLS. 



PLAIN STATEMENT. I95 

proved entirely successful; and Savannah had the 
use of the Barracks for a number of years, to the 
mutual benefit of the United States Government 
and the city. The prompt and practical manner in 
which this application v^^as treated by the Secretary 
of War, all minor impediments being brushed aside, 
while the utmost care was taken to fully protect the 
interests of the Government, made on me a deep 
impression, which has survived to this day. Later 
on in that summer Mr. Davis accompanied President 
Pierce to the mountains of Virginia, where I hap- 
pened then to be. The short official interviews at 
Washington were there followed by less restrained 
social intercourse, which proved to be most interest- 
ing and instructive. The extent and accuracy of his 
knowledge of men and things, and his exceptional 
capacity for imparting information in familiar, yet 
beautiful language, increased and completed the im- 
pression made on me in Washington. Naturally, I 
then became much interested in his public career. 
I met him again, casually, at the house of a friend, 
in the State of New York, where he had gone on 
public business, in the early autumn of 1860. Ex- 
cept in this instance, I did not see Mr. Davis until 
June, 1862, when I passed through Kichmond on 
my way from the coast of Georgia, to join Stone- 
wall Jackson s command in the Valley. He had 
then been for more than a year the diligent, toiling, 



196 KEMINIs5fi!l«ES OF JEFFEESON DAVIS. 

faithful, President of the new Confederacy. Labor, 
responsibility and care had, already made their 
mark upon him, and seriously impaired his health. 
Yet, still a splendid horseman, as he rode along the 
lines around Richmond, visiting the various points 
of military interest, he was a figure not to be forgot- 
ten. Nor less did he impress me in the bosom of 
his family, the tender husband and father, the re- 
fined gentleman, the courteous and kindly friend. 

The exigencies of that terrible and glorious cam- 
paign of 1862, and its results to myself, prevented 
my seeing the President again for nearly a year, 
when I reached Richmond to report once more for 
active service in the field. But I found that the 
President had determined to assign me to duty as 
Quartermaster-General. I was thus detained in 
Richmond, and brought into close official relations 
with the Executive Department of the Government. 
It would be too personal to discuss here the feelings 
of hesitation, reluctance and anxiety with which I 
finally accepted so grave a trust. Suffice it to say, 
that for some time previous, and until the final over- 
throw of the Confederacy, the all-absorbing prob- 
lems to be solved were field and railway transporta- 
tion, and supplies for the Army — the first under the 
exclusive control of the Quartermaster s Department 
— and the same department, in much larger measure 
than all others combined, responsible for the latter. 



PLAIN STATEMENT. 197 

With no rolling-mills nor locomotive works to re- 
plenish dilapidated railways, while armies in the 
field were hundreds of miles distant from the 
sources of supply — every part of our territory spe- 
cially devoted to the raising of grain, wool, cattle 
and horses, either laid waste or in possession of the 
enemy — how were we to feed, clothe and transport 
our armies, and furnish horses and forage for 
wagon trains, cavalry and artillery? The thorough 
comprehension of the situation by Mr. Davis im- 
pressed me forcibly on our first interviews in this 
new relation. And while he had most distinct and 
eminently wise views as to the proper division of re- 
sponsibility everywhere, and was slow to trench 
upon the functions of any other official, he never 
forgot that by far the largest share of that responsi- 
bility rose up from every inferior in grade, and ad- 
hered finally to the superior of all. 

This dependence on the Quartermaster-General for 
the essentials of transportation and supplies neces- 
sarily caused the President often to summon him to 
his presence, or to accomplish the interview through 
General Lee. Take an example, which is itself of 
absorbing interest : The battle of Chickamauga was 
imminent. General Lee was appealed to to send 
Longstreet's entire corps, horses and artillery from 
the Rapidan all the way to the shadow of Lookout 
Mountain, to reinforce General Bragg. Everything 



198 EEMINIsSftHHES OF JEFFEESON DAVIS. 

turned on the question of transportation and supply, 
and all had to be decided and performed with tele- 
graphic haste. If this corps could reach Bragg in 
time for the impending battle, he might expect suc- 
cess ; and General Lee ought, in that case, to detach 
and risk the absence of this important part of his 
army. But if Longstreet should reach Bragg too 
late to take part in the fight, and General Lee's 
strength diminished to that fearful extent, it might 
imperil the existence of both armies, and expose our 
weakness everywhere. The Quartermaster-General 
must say 'wJien Longstreet's corps could be delivered 
at Chickamauga. The time was named, and I 
tremble now as I recall the responsibility which that 
reply involved! The first detachment arrived in 
Richmond from the Rapidan the day after this inter- 
view at once filled all the trains in sight, then an- 
other, and another — and Longstreet joined Bragg 
almost at the moment when the firing commenced ! 
The result is known. 

Whenever complaint was made to the President 
by any commander, either in the field or of a mili- 
tary department, or by a member of Congress resi- 
dent therein, that the supply of clothing, horses, 
forage, field or railway trains belonging to that 
army or department was inadequate, or less in pro- 
portion than elsewhere, before the President would 
make any response he promptly summoned the 



PLAIN STATEMENT. 199 

Quartermaster-General, to learn from him the facts 
— obtained, if possible, the figures, and based his re- 
ply thereon. These details are given to show the 
great care of Mr. Davis to be informed before acting, 
and, while not avoiding any responsibility himself to 
call to his aid the chief of every department, and 
fix that responsibility where the evil could, if possi- 
ble, be arrested or corrected. And further, I wish 
to show, at the risk of seeming egotism, what oppor- 
tunity, yea, what necessity there was for me to know 
that of which I speak. Believing that I am without 
excuse, if mistaken, I do not hesitate to say, that in 
every instance of the nature here referred to (and I 
must refrain from further details) I never saw or 
heard anything, in manner or speech, that exhibited 
either undue temper or ill will against any officer or 
servant of the Confederate States. But the action 
or inaction of each was discussed entirely with ref- 
erence to its effect on the result and the " cause." 
On some of these occasions Mr. Davis was suffering 
torture from physical maladies, and could not sit at 
ease a moment. 

His thorough and accurate acquaintance with all 
that was transpiring within the Confederate States, 
and his familiarity with all obtainable knowledge of 
things outside that affected our cause, was a con- 
stant surprise to those brought into immediate con- 
tact with him. Not less conspicuous was his readi- 



200 KEMIN^SeaHt^ES OF JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

ness for self-sacrifice, and his unwillingness to con- 
demn, or even harshly to criticise others, until full 
information was obtained as to where the blame 
should rest. These qualities were, in part, the 
source of the reproaches so frequently brought 
against him, that he adhered to his friends at the ex- 
pense of the public interest, and upheld them 
against the general clamor of adverse opinion. 
This holding fast to personal friendships, and giving 
countenance where it is most needed, may become a 
serious fault in a public man of high position and 
great power. But it is in itself such a beautiful 
virtue, or such a noble failing, as you may prefer to 
characterize it, that who of us, with generous in- 
stincts, does not love and admire it ? Those who 
looked into the depths of his human soul loved him 
for these very traits ! The longer I live the more I 
prize the name of friendship, which waits and seeks 
for opportunity to serve, and steps gladly to the 
front when needed, even though not summoned ! 

To my mind, the most difficult and painful part 
which Mr. Davis had to enact was forced on him 
after hostilities had ceased, by his long and severe 
imprisonment, and then his retirement from all par- 
ticipation in active affairs during the remainder of 
his life. A man of great pride, indomitable indus- 
try and energy, and of a temper naturally quick and 
strong, though controlled, he felt — oh ! how nobly — 



PLAIN STATEMENT. 201 

amid his constant physical sufferings, the responsi- 
bility of so bearing himself as to bring no reproach 
on the lost cause ; coming to the front only on rare 
occasions, when attacks upon this cause, and the 
earnest desire of his fellow Confederates, did not 
permit him to remain silent. How well he bore 
himself on these occasions let his record attest ! 

In connection with his wonderful powers of utter- 
ance, and perfect mastery of the English language, 
I recall with sincere pleasure an inquiry about Mr. 
Davis, made by Lord Rosebery while on a visit to 
the United States many years since ; and the desire 
expressed to make his personal acquaintance. His 
Lordship remarked that Mr. Davis delivered his in- 
augural at Montgomery, when he (Rosebery) was a 
youth, about leaving Eton College. The elegant 
style and high tone of the address so fired his youth- 
ful admiration that he followed it up by reading 
carefully every State paper from that source as soon 
as published. He said there was nothing finer in all 
the records of State papers than these messages and 
proclamations. When I asked him if his curiosity 
had led him to look at these papers in more mature 
years, he replied with emphasis, " The re-perusal 
has more than confirmed the impressions and ad- 
miration of my younger days." 

As I only undertake to give the result of such 
desultory observations as I was permitted personally 
to make, I will add but one more incident. 



202 EEMINlSiBt^CES OF JEFFERSON DAVIS. . 

On my first visit to the North on business, after 
the war, in the spring of 186,6, I had the pleasure to 
meet Mrs. Davis on the train from New York to 
Washington, availing herself of the first permit to 
visit her husband in his prison at Fortress Monroe. 
At her request 1 stopped over a day in Washington, 
to confer with two or three public men, and see 
whether there could not be some mitigation of his 
prison life. To my surprise, one of the names she 
gave me (whom she thought would be willing to 
further her wishes) was the Senator from Massachu- 
setts, General Wilson, afterwards Vice-President of 
the United States. I approached him with marked 
embarrassment, but he soon made one feel at ease. 
" I have," he said, " very great respect for Jefferson 
Davis, having served with him in the Senate and on 
the Military Committee of that body. He is an 
able, courageous and conscientious man ; and though 
I think he was wrong in some important things, I 
am sure he was as honest in his convictions as I 
was. While I insist on the political results of the 
war, I am utterly opposed to all such personal pun- 
ishments. If I can do anything to mitigate his 
situation, you can rely on me. But I fear those in 
executive authority do not agree with me." Many 
years elapsed before I had an opportunity to men- 
tion this interview to Mr. Davis, and General Wil- 
son had then long been dead. With much feeling 



PLAIN STATEMENT. 203 

he said : " 1 knew Wilson well — his honesty and 
frankness — and am not at all surprised at what he 
felt, and said to you.'* 

His last utterance in print was a reply to Lord 
Wolseley's harsh and unjust strictures upon himself 
in the North American Review ; and* there it was 
shown that the weight of all his troubles and af- 
flictions, and of his more than four-score years, had 
not dimmed his intellect, nor diminished his power 
to marshal the facts of history and rebuke the 
wrong. 

I must close, though the debt I owe to our great 
chief is not paid. It never can be. For my opin- 
ion is not newly formed, but has been long and per- 
sistently maintained, that his abilities were of the 
highest order, his career without spot or blemish, 
even to the day of his death ; and that he illus- 
trated to the full extent the finest traits of the South- 
ern Christian gentleman, the accomplished and ever 
faithful public servant. 



JEFFERSON DAVIS AS I KNEW HIM. 

BY HON. REUBKN DAVIS. 

** Wherefore I sl«ill not fatigue myself to seek that which is impossible 
to find, and I shall not consume my life in flattering myself with the vain 
hope of seeing a man without blame among us mortals, who live upon what 
the earth presents to us." 

" Now Esteem is a sincere homage, which causes a soul to be sincerely 
touched and affected ; whereas Praise is frequently but a vain and deceitful 
sound." Plato. 

JEFFERSON DAVIS was a man whose high 
fortune it had been to deserve in full measure 
that esteem declared by the greatest philoso- 
pher to be the worthiest tribute a man may receive 
from his fellow men. On the other hand, it has 
been his misfortune to have heaped upon him that 
ill-considered and undiscriminating praise condemned 
by the same great mind as an insult to the common 
sense of the living, and an offence against the 
majesty of the noble dead. Our hearts revolt 
against such homage, as though one should seek to 
enbalm the royal dead with cheap spices and per- 
fumes, instead of breaking above the sacred body 
that rich casket of ointment, chrism, consecrated to 
heroes and princes among men, because distilled 
only from immortal plants — those " actions of the 

just, which smell sweet, and blossom *in the dust." 
204 



JEFFERSON DAVIS AS I KNEW HIM. 205 

For my part, in beginning some slight memorial 
of the noble gentleman whom I have regarded with 
esteem, admiration and affection for fifty years, and 
whose death comes to Southern men of my genera- 
tion as the rending of ties close and strong, I hold 
that I reverence him but by simple truth. He had 
splendid and lofty qualities enough, not only to 
atone for some defects of character and temperament, 
but, so to speak, to make those defects a necessary 
part of his individuality. 

What sort of friendship is that which plays tricks 
with a man's memory, making paltry excuses here, 
or paltry denials there? To be perfectly loyal, a 
man must love his friend, faults and all, scorning to 
paint him otherwise than as God made him. 

There is nothing in all nature more certain than 
the great law of limitation, which holds all men in 
bondage, and, by which, an excess of any one power 
or quality, presupposes a corresponding deficiency in 
the opposite direction. And it is the men born with 
these abnormal forces who become the leaders of 
nations. It is such men who compel the respect and 
admiration of honest men, whatever may be their 
differences of opinion, or however bitterly they may 
be opposed to each other. 

That Jefferson Davis was such a man was proved 
by the almost universal tribute of the public press — 
that great voice which can be surely trusted to utter 



206 EEMINIsSftllCES OF JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

all that is best, deepest and truest in popular thought 
and sentiment. I speak naw not so much of the 
warm outpouring of natural Southern emotion, but 
of the calmer verdict of those who had been his ene- 
mies, who still abhorred the creed to which he died 
steadfast, but who honored themselves in giving him 
due honor. In one of these articles, written in no 
unkindly spirit, I am sure — the editor spoke uncon- 
sciously a proud word for the South. He said : 
" The South gives itself up to passionate lamentation 
for Jefferson Davis, not knowing, perhaps, how 
much more of pride than of grief is behind their 
emotion." We accept this without question, and 
glory in the knowledge that when a whole people 
knelt by the bier ot the man whom the South de- 
lighted to honor, a grief untainted by shame or 
dishonor filled their hearts. 

When a man lives to extreme old age, there can be 
only a narrow circle in which his loss is keenly felt 
as a personal sorrow, and very few whose lives are 
changed by his 'going away. Of those who live now, 
few remember Jefferson Davis in his prime, scarcely 
any in his early youth. I do not know if there is 
a single survivor of the class who were his comrades 
at West Point, or of those who shared with him the 
adventures and dangers of the Black Hawk War. 
That he distinguished himself from the beginning of 
his career as a student and soldier, is well known. 



JEFFERSON DAVIS AS I KNEW HIM. 207 

While still a very young man, fate dealt him a 
cruel blow, which changed the current of his life at 
the time, and, by so doing, altered the whole course 
of his future. His young wife, to whom he was 
devotedly attached, died a few months after mar- 
riage, and he mourned for her as a man mourns for 
the love of his youth. Withdrawing himself from 
his accustomed pursuits and associations, he retired 
to his estate at Brierfield, where he lived for ten 
years in great seclusion. These ten years were 
devoted to patient study, and it is no doubt to this 
prolongation of his student life that he owed the 
ripeness of his knowledge, and the polished beauty 
of his style, both in speaking and writing. The 
course of study adopted by him, and his unwearied 
investigation of all questions appertaining to human 
life and the science of government, fitted him to 
adorn the high places he was destined to fill. 

One defect in his mental structure — the too minute 
attention to detail and form — had been hardened 
into a fixed habit by his military training. Had his 
destiny led him to rulership in a settled and power- 
ful government, ruled by precedent, and requiring 
only a firm, strong hand to guide, and a polished 
intellect to adorn, this training would have been 
admirable. A revolution calls for different qualities, 
and a man less great than Jefferson Davis might 
have possessed an order of talent far more effective 



208 KEMInS^WTCES of JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

in great emergencies. Gifted with some of the 
highest attributes of a statesman, he lacked the 
pliancy which enables a man to adapt his measures 
to the crises. His determination was fixed to bend 
the crises to his measures. 

In 1843 an important issue claimed the attention 
of our people. This was the repudiation of the 
Union Bank bonds. As this question was one of 
great importance, touching the credit and honor of 
the whole State, it brought out the ablest men both 
for and against it. Some of those friends who knew 
Jefferson Davis intimately, and who recognized his 
wonderful powers of persuasive logic, determined to 
bring him out of his long retirement at a crisis when 
he could make a brilliant entrance into public action. 
They selected an adversary with whom few untried 
orators would have dared to measure themselves — 
the renowned L. L. Prentiss. The discussion lasted 
for two days, and was probably never surpassed in 
the force and beauty of the speeches. It was 
claimed that Mr. Davis came off victor. He was, 
without doubt, far superior to Mr. Prentiss as a 
debater, and scarcely less fascinating in style and 
manner of speaking. 

It was not until the summer of 1844 that I had 
the honor of a personal acquaintance with Mr. 
Davis, though I had before that time regarded him 
with admiration as one of the most gifted young 



JEFFERSON DAVIS AS I KNEW HIM. 209 

men of the South. At a meeting of the Democratic 
Convention to appoint electors, Mr. Davis had made 
a speech so brilliant and convincing that, upon its 
conclusion, the whole body had risen, and nominated 
him by acclamation for district elector. General 
Harry S. Foote had been nominated elector for the 
State at large. Davis and Foote traveled together 
and made joint speeches. 

I had been invited to attend a barbecue at Davis' 
Mill, on the line dividing Tennessee and Mississippi, 
and the day before, reached Holly Springs in time to 
hear the discussion. It was there that I first heard 
Mr. Davis speak, and was captivated by his lucid 
argument and delightful oratory. I do not think that 
I ever listened to any man with more pleasure and 
admiration, and, I may say here, that his speeches 
always impressed me in the same manner, even when, 
as afterwards happened, I was unable to adopt his 
side of the matter under discussion. At that time, 
however, there was no discord in our opinions, and 
I recall as among the most agreeable recollections 
of that by-gone time, our subsequent journey to 
Aberdeen, where Davis and Foote were to attend a 
great barbecue, and to be my guests for some days. 

Everywhere they went they were received with 

enthusiasm, and from that canvass may be dated 

the ascendency which Mr. Davis began to hold over 

the popular mind and heart of Mississippi. He was 

14 



210 REMINlS^KCES OF JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

elected to Congress, but resigned when chosen 
Colonel of the First Mississippi Regiment of Volun- 
teers for the Mexican War. His regiment was 
made up of the best material in the State, and well 
ofRcered. At first the men resented the strict disci- 
pline their colonel was wise enough to enforce, and for 
a time he was somewhat unpopular in consequence. 
Afterwards they realized the advantages of this 
severity, and, having found their leader as fearless 
in action as he was resolute in discipline, they 
almost idolized him. 

Nothing could have been finer than the handling 
of that regiment in the battle of Buena Vista — nor 
more heroic than the personal courage of Colonel 
Davis. Although painfully wounded early in the 
morning, he continued his duty as if unhurt, even 
when urged by General Taylor himself to leave the 
field. His reply was noble and characteristic : " My 
men are full of spirit and courage, but there might be 
some mistake, under which they might falter, and 
so lose the day. I will stay with them till the fight 
is over." He had that high sense of duty which 
yielded to no pain of body or personal pride. 

When he returned to Mississippi on crutches he 
was received with that enthusiasm which his great 
services so well merited. I do not think there was 
ever a time after that when he did not stand first in 
the hearts of Mississippians. 



JEFFERSON DAVIS AS I KNEW HIM. 211 

Very early in the movement toward secession, he 
was recognized as one of the leaders of the Disunion 
party. Believing as he did, first and last in the 
absolute sovereignty of the States, he never altered 
his policy, or the conviction that secession was the 
only safety and duty of the South. I do not believe 
that personal ambition had any conscious share in 
determining his action during this time, though he 
must have known that, should a new government be 
formed, he would certainly be chosen to fill the high- 
est place in it. That a man of his ambition, and 
just confidence in his ability, and in the affection 
and admiration of the Southern people, could have 
been contented with a subordinate place in a revo- 
lution which he was so active in bringing about, was 
not to be expected. 

But that he was sincerely devoted to the cause 
for which he fought, and that he believed in the 
principles of that cause with all the force of a mind 
clear in its convictions, and a character tenacious 
even to obstinacy in its determinations, cannot be 
doubted. His was essentially a strong and forceful 
nature, and he possessed the grand quality of stead- 
fastness in its fullest measure. 

Resenting opposition with the unalterable resentr 
ment of a reserved, proud and self-centred nature, 
it was not a possibility with him to recognize the 
justice of such opposition, even when proved by the 



212 KEMTMi^NCES OF JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

fatal results of a contrary policy, From this char- 
acteristic, it followed almost necessarily that he was 
sometimes obstinate in measures which afterward 
proved disastrous to the cause to which his whole 
heart was devoted ; and that his prejudice for and 
against certain men, led to grave errors in selection 
for, and exclusion from, places of trust. 

It is idle now to question how far the result could 
have been changed by a different policy, or whether 
the great game of war and politics could have been so 
played as to give victory to the South ; worse than 
idle for even those who would then have died for the 
cause, no longer regret that it is a lost one. Still it 
cannot be denied that our whole policy was from the 
first fatal to all hope of success. Only the splendid 
courage of our soldiers, and the skill of a few of our 
commanders, could have prolonged the struggle 
through four wretched years. Of those years, I 
confess I cannot bring myself to write. It is like a 
nightmare to recall the bitter days when, as it 
seemed to me, thousands of lives were sacrificed, 
untold miseries endured, and the self-devotion of our 
people poured out in vain. The result which was 
accepted a quarter of a century ago as a woful 
necessity, has gradually evolved itself into a national 
gain. There are few men in the new South, who 
are not glad of our undivided nationality. The 
bitterness is that we blundered so fearfully ; that we 



JEFFERSON DAVIS AS I KNEW HIM. 213 

threw away so many chances, and that our struggle, 
noble as it was, was embittered by so many ignoble 
jealousies, and frustrated by so many unworthy 
enmities. 

It was the strength as well as the weakness of 
Jefferson Davis, that to the last he could not see 
this. Unbending in his conviction, he was sustained 
through defeat, captivity, and the long years of 
enforced inaction, by the serene approval -of his 
mind and conscience. He believed that the cause 
for which he had toiled and suffered, was just and 
holy, and that the measures adopted to sustain it 
were the best which could have been devised under 
the circumstances. 

To my mind, this heroic and good man makes a 
noble picture, with the ruins of his life's work all 
around him, and " all but his faith overthrown." 

That a man should be right always is impossible — 
it is an impertinence to expect it of poor humanity. 
When he has the strength to venture all for a high 
vision, however mistaken, to live through slow years 
of defeat and failure, and die, holding fast his in- 
tegrity, the world can give us no grander spectacle. 

As the world is constituted, there is a vulgarizing 
element in success, with its blatant triumph and 
sordid following. Always, in History or Poem, it is 
the good man, steadfast against adverse fortune, who 
claims the homage of all hearts. 



RECOLLECTIONS AND TRIBUTE. 

BY HON. GKORGK DAVIS, 

Member of Mr. Davis' Cabinet. 

" T HAVE said ye are gods, and all of you are 
± children of the Most High. But ye shall die 

like men, and fall like one of the princes." 
Jefferson Davis is dead. A prince has fallen — 
a true prince in all that most ennobles our man- 
hood. To die in the purple of power and state, 
to fall in the rush of battle, where cannons are 
roaring and bayonets are flashing, to sink in the 
arms of victory, to end in the glare and dazzle of 
proud achievements — chieftain and soldier as he 
■was — these things were not for him. 

After long years of toil and anxiety, of strife 
and bitterness, of struggle and failure, of hatred 
and insult and slander, of poverty and misfortune, 
of weariness, pain and suffering, having finished his 
course he now rests from his labors — rests in peace. 
He has passed from earth, enduring unto the end. 

"O! let him pass. He hates him 
That would upon the rack of this tough world 
Stretch him out longer." 

Whatever was great in his public life — and there 
was much — ^whatever was memorable in his actions, 
214 



KECOLLECTIONS AND TBIBUTE. 215 

as soldier, scholar, orator, statesman, patriot, these 
things I relegate to history. T desire only to utter 
a few simple words in loving remembrance of the 
chief I honored, of the man I admired, of the dead 
friend whom I loved. What manner of man was 
this for whom ten millions of people are in grief 
and tears this day ? No man ever lived upon whom 
the glare of public attention beat more fiercely, 
no man ever lived more sharply criticised, more 
unjustly slandered, more sternly censured, more 
strongly condemned, more bitterly hated, more 
wrongly maligned, and, though slandered by ene- 
mies, betrayed by false friends, carped at by igno- 
rant fools, no man ever lived who could more 
fearlessly, like a great man who long preceded him, 
"leave the vindication of his fair fame to the 
next ages and to men's charitable speeches." Stand- 
ing here to-day by his open grave, and, in all 
probability, not very far from my own, I declare to 
you that he was the honestest, truest, gentlest, 
bravest, tenderest, manliest man I ever knew : and 
what more could I say than that? My public life 
was long since over, my ambition went down with 
the banner of the South, and, like it, never rose 
again. I have had abundant time in all these quiet 
years, and it has been my favorite occupation, to 
review the occurrences of that time, and recall over 
the history of that tremendous struggle, to remem- 



216 KEMKsJHB^JIgXIES OF JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

ber with love and admiration, the great men who 
bore their part in its events. 

I have often thought what was it that the South- 
ern people had to be most proud of in all the 
proud things of their record. Not the achieve- 
ments of our arms. No man is more proud of them 
than I; no man rejoices more in Manassas, Chan- 
cellorsville and in Richmond ; but all nations have 
had their victories. There is something, I think, 
better than that, and it was this, that through all 
the bitterness of that time, and throughout all the 
heat of that fierce contest, Jefferson Davis and 
Robert E. Lee never spoke a word, never wrote a 
line that the whole neutral world did not accept 
as the very indisputable truth. You all remember 
that Mr. Davis did not send a message to Congress, 
in which he portrayed the condition and causes of 
things, that all the world did not know it to be true. 
You know, Mr. Chairman, and you remember, you 
old grey jackets ; yes, you all remember, that when 
General Lee, in his quiet, modest, reverent way, 
would telegraph to Mr. Davis, at Richmond, that 
God had mercifully blessed our arms, not all the 
lying bulletins that shingled over half the world 
could make any one believe that there had been a 
Federal victory. Aye, truth was the guiding star 
of both of them, and that is a grand thing to 
remember ; upon that my memory rests more proudly 



EECOLLECTIONS AND TRIBUTE. 217 

than upon anything else. It is a monument better 
than marble, more durable than brass. Teach it to 
your children, that they may be proud to remember 
Jefferson Davis. 

The more you knew him, the nearer you came to 
him, the more you saw and heard him, the greater 
he grew. 

He has been growing greater and greater for 
twenty-five years ; he will be greater one hundred 
years hence than he is to-day. Such wonderful and 
accurate information I never saw. He seemed to me 
to have traversed the whole course of science and of 
nature and of art. Whatever was the topic of con- 
versation, from making a horseshoe to interpreting 
the Constitution, from adjusting a jack-plane to 
building a railroad, he not only seemed to know all 
about it, but could tell you the most approved 
method of doing it all. Some people have an idea, 
and not a few, I expect, that Mr. Davis was a cold, 
severe, austere, unfeeling man. There never was a 
more untrue opinion. No man ever had a better 
right to know than I. For sixteen months I had 
the honor to be at the head of the Law Department 
of the Government, and every sentence of a military 
court that went to Mr. Davis was referred to me 
for examination and report. I do not think I am a 
very cruel man, but I declare to you it was the most 
diflficult thing in the world to keep Mr. Davis up to 



218 BEMINlSWmpES OF JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

the measure of justice. He wanted to pardon 
everybody, and if ever a wife^ or mother, or a sister 
got into his presence, it took but a little while for 
their tears to wash out the records. 

Hear what General Taylor wrote of him — General 
Dick Taylor, who knew him even better than I did, 
and who was himself, 

"The knightliest of the knightly race 
That since the days of old 
Have kept the lamp of chivalry 
Alight in hearts of gold." 

"In the month of March, 1875, my devoted wife 
was released from suffering. Smitten by the calam- 
ity, I stood by her coffin as it was closed, to look 
for the last time upon features that death had 
respected and restored to their girlish beauty. Mr. 
Davis came reverently to my side and stooped 
reverently to touch the fair brow, when the tender- 
ness of his heart overcame him and he burst into 
tears. His example completely unnerved me for 
the time, but was of service in the end. For many 
succeeding days he came to me and was as gentle 
as a young mother with her suffering infant. Mem- 
ory will ever recall Jefferson Davis as he stood with 
me by that coffin." 

I do not know, but I profess to you that I 
thoroughly believe that he could never read the 
story of " Little Nell " or the death of Colonel New- 



RECOLLECTIONS AND TRIBUTE. 219 

come without his eyes being bedimmed with tears. 
Once he was indisposed in Richmond, so sick that 
the physician confined him to the Led. To relieve 
the monotony, his wife was reading to him one 
morning some story — I do not remember what. 
He was so quiet that Mrs. Davis thought he was 
asleep, but did not stop Cr fear of awaking him. 
She got to that portion of the book where the villain 
of the story got the heroine into his power, and 
was coming it pretty strong over her, when sud- 
denly she heard him exclaim : " The infernal vil- 
lain !" and looking around, the President was sitting 
up in bed with both fists clenched. Well, this is a 
little thing; do you respect him less for it? It 
showed that he was a man, not a cold image set up 
on a pedestal for us to admire, a man with the faults 
and weaknesses of human nature, but a man with 
the great virtues of a great nature. I never saw a 
man more simple in his habits of life. He sur- 
rounded himself with no barriers of forms and 
ceremonies. The humblest soldier in the ranks, 
the plainest citizen in the Confederacy, could have 
as easy access to him as the members of his Cabinet, 
when such demands on his time were consistent with 
the demands of the public service. No man ever 
lived who more thoroughly despised the mere show 
and tinsel of state and power, and the trappings of 
office. 



220 EEMINISCBiitigS OF JEFFEKSON DA Via 

Mr. Davis was at the head of one of the grandest 
armies the world ever saw in a time when " laws 
were silent in the midst of arms/' and I give you 
my word I never saw him attended by a guard 
or even by an orderly. His domestic servants and 
his office messengers were all that he needed, and 
all that he would have. I say he was never 
attended by a guard ; he was once, and I shall never 
forget the pleasure with which he told me of it. 
When General Lee was encamped on the banks of 
the Chickahominy, near Richmond, Mr. Davis was 
in the habit every afternoon, after the business of 
his office was over, of riding out to his headquarters. 
Upon these visits he always went on horseback, and 
generally alone. Upon one occasion he was detained 
later than usual, and night had fallen before he 
left General Lee's tent. As he rode along he heard 
a horse approaching rapidly, and presently a cheery 
young voice cried out, " Good evening," and as he 
turned to salute, a young lad rode up to his side — 
a mere boy of sixteen or seventeen years of age, 
but he wore the grey jacket, and had his rifle on his 
shoulder and his revolver in his belt. " Good even- 
ing, is your name Davis?" "Yes." "Jefferson 
Davis ?" " Yes." " I thought so. Now, don't you 
think you are doing very wrong to be riding around 
in the dark by yourself?" Mr. Davis said he was 
within our lines, and had nothing to fear from 



RECOLLECTIONS AND TRIBUTE. 221 

Confederate soldiers. " It ain't right/' said the boy, 
" for there are bad men in our army as well as in 
all armies." Mr. Davis, in his kind and gentle way, 
entered into conversation with him, and they rode 
on five or six miles together, until they reached the 
fortifications of the city, when the boy drew up and 
said : " "Well, I'll turn back now. Good evening," 
and rode away into the darkness. The brave lad 
thought the President was in danger, and he made 
himself his body-guard, determined to see him 
through; and he would have died for him there 
upon that lonely road with as much bravery and 
cheerfulness as thousands of his comrades were 
dying every day for the cause Mr. Davis repre- 
sented. 

Ah, his people loved him, and have met together 
to-day to show it to the world. I once witnessed a 
scene which showed how the people loved him. In 
May, 1867, after two years of the most brutal treat- 
ment, the most brutal imprisonment the world ever 
saw, outside of Siberia, unrelieved by the slightest 
touch of kindness or generosity, Mr. Davis was 
brought to trial before the Federal Court in Rich- 
mond. I chanced to be there, and promised Mrs. 
Davis, as soon as I had any intimation of what the 
court was going to do, to come and report. I sat in 
the court when Chief Justice Chase announced that 
the prisoner was released. I never knew how I 



222 KEMINISdSJit^ES OF JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

got out of that court-house, or through the crowd 
that lined the streets, but I found myself in Mrs. 
Davis' room and reported. In a little while I looked 
out of a window and saw that the streets were 
lined with thousands and thousands of the people 
of Richmond, and scarcely passage was there even 
for the carriage in which Mr. Davis rode at a funeral 
gait ; and as he rode every head was bared, not a 
sound was heard, except now and then a long sigh, 
and so he ascended to his wife's chamber. That 
room was crowded with friends, male and female. 
As Mr. Davis entered they rushed to him and threw 
their arms around him. They embraced each other, 
old soldiers, men of tried daring, cried like infants. 
Dear old Dr. Minnegerode lifted up his hands, with 
big tears rolling down his cheeks, and the assembled 
company knelt down, while he offered up a short 
thanksgiving to God for having restored to us our 
revered chieftain. 

Now, what more can I say ? I have endeavored 
to give you these little personal traits of Mr. Davis 
in order that you might know him better. I have 
said he was a prince. He was far better than that. 
He was a high-souled, true-hearted Christian gentle- 
man. And if our poor humanity has any higher 
form than that, I know not what it is. His great 
and active intellect never exercised itself with ques- 
tioning the being of God or the truth of His reve- 



KECOLLECTIONS AND TRIBUTE. 223 

iations to man. He never thought it wise or smart 
to scoff at mysteries which he could not understand. 
He never was daring enough to measure infinite 
power and goodness by the poor, narrow gauge of a 
limited, crippled human intellect. Where he under- 
stood he admired, worshipped, adored. Where he 
could not understand, he rested unquestioningly 
upon a faith that was as the faith of a little child — 
a faith that never wavered, and that made him look 
always undoubtingly, fearlessly through life, through 
death, to life again. 



"MY DEAD HERO." 

BY CHARLES MINNIGERODB, D.D., 

Mr. Davis' Pastor during the War. 

THAT is the plaintive name given to Iiim in a 
personal letter to me ' by the one who knew 
him best and loved him most — his noble, 
stricken widow. And millions have responded in a 
loud and solemn echo, " Our Dead Hero!' 

I do not know that History, in any time or coun- 
try, has witnessed such deep-toned, universal feel- 
ing, such a spontaneous upheaving of the deepest 
sorrow and sympathy of the heart, and, as if stand- 
ing at his grave, from every quarter of the South, 
people poured out their lament, their admiration, 
loyalty and love in such irrepressible manifestations. 

In the great epochs and events of History there 
ever rises one man, who seems to be pointed out by 
Providence as the leader in the struggle, and in 
whom the conflict is represented and, as it were, in- 
carnated. A Cromwell, William of Orange, our own 
peerless Washington — not one of them were the 
originators, the cause of events. Circumstances, the 
necessities of the times, brought them to the surface, 
and put them in the place for which Providence had 

called them and fitted them. If I have understood 
224 



%: C 





__. it 4 -:::■ 




■■r -.....■■:-.■■■ ^■■■^^^■....r,--^^ 


WII0 


HHk 


;? . Mf J^Hr 


m^m. 


^^^■H 4) 


yl^-n. 


^^^W?""^; 


_^- 


H^" 1' 






S-^"f 


■ -■■''"^m 


I^l^- ' 


■WL 


' B^E 




'^^P!l» 


■ i .''wm 


> |l " '\a,^t\ 




il ""11,.. /•=2!' 


•:^*v 




3: ^ 


iiL 


'.y- Jttfl 


=s*!i,: ^ i 


m 


^*^^H^-f-'-ii'i 




^P .j^^S^H'-' ^ 


P^'^^^^' ^nP^*^Bfe^*^ * #''^ ^ * 


^^> JK^^^^W --« »i . 


j^*^ l^^^^sHi :'^' ■ 


F " ^ f||M^S5^ A ^jf. 


DMS^L^|$^£^g^^ T *tf •. ■"SMf'Vl j*C^ '^^"t'kg '* 




^w^ps'i' 


''-^'^H»i' ■ 


<-^ 




isr 


iw 


i ^#"u».^s5-a 









"MY DEAD HEKO." 225 

Mr. Davis' position at all, he gloried in the Ee volu- 
tion of the Colonies in 1776 as the struggle for the 
rights and liberties which belonged to them as their 
natural claims which the home-country denied to 
them. The secession of the Southern States was in 
defence of their constitutional rights, which were^ 
threatened by the aggressive and unconstitutional 
policy of the Government. That Government was 
a union of the separate Colonies as sovereign States, 
which delegated certain powers to the General Gov- 
ernment as the central agent of the sovereign States. 
The debate about their mutual relation was long, 
and the two views of a centralized nation and a 
union of sovereign States existed from the begin- 
ning. But there would have been no United States 
at all if the States' rights had not been established 
by the Constitution. It is the fundamental and car- 
dinal bond of the different States, which, only on 
these terms, at last ratified and accepted the Consti- 
tution. The right of States to withdraw when they 
deemed themselves wronged by measures of the 
Central Government was claimed more than once by 
Northern States, while there was an equilibrium in 
strength and power of the two sections. But the 
bond of union, with the glorious recollections and 
struggles of the common country, prevented action. 
It was only when the North became overwhelming 

in power, and its population growing from year to 
15 



226 EEMlMiilgNCES OF JEFFEESON DAVIS. 

year, that separation or withdrawal became a possi- 
bility. Compromises upon compromises staved off 
the danger, but did not secure the minority of the 
States against the aggressive policy of the North, 
Noble men in the North and South labored for years 
to heal the breach, and Jefferson Davis was among 
the foremost to labor for the Union and urge the 
policy of patience, forbearance and hope, dreading 
separation as the most unhappy event. But in vain. 
The strife went on; the breach widened. And at 
last the Southern States felt themselves forced to 
meet what to them appeared as secession on the part 
of the North from the fundamental and cardinal 
features of the Constitution, by their constitutional 
right to withdraw (they did not think it right to 
disobey or rebel while part and parcel of the United 
States Government) ; when delay would have event- 
ually resulted in the subjugation of the South to 
mere majority, and the surrender of all their liber- 
ties guaranteed by the Constitution, reducing the 
sovereign States to mere provinces — then it was not 
revolution or rebellion, but the resort to their con- 
stitutional right of secession, which was chosen ; and 
life, property and honor were pledged in support of 
their action. 

These were the views of the Southern States, and 
shared to this day — at least as far as the constitu- 
tional question is concerned — by many in the North. 



"MY DEAD HEEO." 227 

In the very beginning of the trouble I had a long 
and earnest letter from a dear friend and distin- 
guished constitutional lawyer in the North, acknowl- 
edging that we were in the right indeed, but that 
they were bound to fight us, even in self-defence, — 
" we cannot do without the South, cannot allow it to 
become a separate State." The feeling for his sec- 
tion made him consent to do what he held to be con- 
stitutionally wrong. And many like him have al- 
lowed their sectional allegiance to override their 
legal scruples. 

Whatever may be thought of these views, and 
however they may be affected by the failure of the 
Confederacy, it was on their part a struggle for life 
and liberty, and the right of self-defence when their 
liberties were threatened. 

Jefferson Davis held these views conscientiously 
and consistently. When his State seceded, he fol- 
lowed the call of the sovereign State, to which he 
owed his first allegiance. 

I have ventured to make these statements, be- 
cause they are the key to his whole life and his 
every action. He was one of the most consistent 
and conscientious of men — " a duty man," as he was 
in the habit of calling others whom he trusted and 
esteemed, and whom he gauged by that — and noth- 
ing could turn him from what he considered to be 
his duty. He was as unselfish as it falls to the best 



228 KEMIOTS^H^CES of JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

of men to be ; he had " no axe to grind," and would 
have spurned himself for seej^ing his self-interest or 
his own glory. He lived and died a true hero in the 
maintenance of the position into which Providence 
— "the vox populi,'' alike as what was (to him) "the 
vox DeV — called him. That call came to him 
loudly and unanimously from the whole South ; and 
I think all admit that he was the only one who 
could have conducted the terrible task that was ap- 
pointed him. He never sought : he was sought. It 
was his genius, his talents, his character, that raised 
him from place to place, from honor to honor, and 
singled him out as the one man the South could trust 
with the responsibility of Chief of the Southern 
Confederacy. 

Jefferson Davis was the rarest combination of tal- 
ents and excellency in almost every department : ' 
military, political, legal, administrative, moral and, 
I boldly add, religious. 

Military: who earned his spurs and reached celeb- 
rity in the wars of his country ; by nature perhaps 
more ambitious in that line than any other, and 
who, I am sure, would gladly have been in the 
saddle, and commanded his armies, had not higher 
duties and his respect for his glorious generals re- 
strained him. 

Political : as shown by the influence he gained in 
every position, and his sagacity, which amounted to 



"MY DEAD HERO." 229 

true statesmanship, clear in his views, comprehen- 
sive, and yet fully at home in details. 

Legal / a mind thoroughly trained in the law, and 
one of the best expounders of the Constitution — the 
basis on which he stood in all his actions. 

Administrative: to a degree which roused the ad- 
miration of the world and even his enemies, and 
which enabled him to hold together the different 
views and preferences of people, to create order 
where was at first only enthusiasm, to employ as his 
counselors the best talent, and with their help to 
bind together all the different elements of his wide 
field, to bring into shape all that was unformed, to 
take a country unprepared, without regular training, 
without finances, without the materials of war, shut 
out from all external help, and conduct and sustain 
its affairs through four long years of war, suffering, 
difficulties and wants, when everything had first to 
be created by his energetic and clear-headed co-oper- 
ation and direction. 

Moral: The glory, I think, of the Confederacy 
was the order and decency with which everything 
was conducted, and the example set by its chief 
There were more Christian men at the head of the 
different departments, more soldiers of Christ in offi- 
cers and men than I have ever known : " Christ was 
in the camp." I know more of Mr. Davis in this 
respect than perhaps any other man. I knew more 



230 EEMINJStjENCES OF JEFFEESON DAVIS. 

of his inner life, and saw him intimately in all pos- 
sible situations : always true, there was not a false 
fibre in him ; always pure, his whole being loathing 
an impure thought, anything low or corrupting ; and 
when he became a communicant of the Church, he 
verified in his person, in word and deed, as far as I 
could judge, that he was " pure in heart,' ^ and lived 
conscientiously in the sight of God. All his habits 
bore the stamp of that. 

And thus I will not say more of him as a religious 
man. I do not claim to have had much share in the 
development of his Christian character. I hope I 
was a help to him as he was to me. 

I would not be misunderstood. Though I believe 
I knew more of this than anybody, except his wife, 
and though I loved and honored him — a noble, un- 
selfish, guileless character — of course he had his 
faults : who has not ? and made mistakes : who does 
not ? But the man's self-control was wonderful, and 
the high aim that guided him saved him from the 
perils of those in such prominent .positions, involved 
as he was in cruel warfare, affected by its harrowing 
and ever-changing situations. 

I would not be astonished if he had been " a good 
hater," such as Dr. Johnson "liked." All strong 
men have strong feelings. But it was more against 
the wrong-doing of men, than their persons. There 
was a generosity in him and a large-hearted disposi- 
tion which was ready to forgive. 



"MY DEAD HERO." 231 

With all his calmness and sagacity, such was his 
want of guile, that he was perhaps liable to fall 
under the influence of injudicious, perhaps even false 
friends, at least for a time. Like all of us, he had 
his prejudices and his preferences; but if he had 
faults like these, they were the result of his unso- 
phisticated, guileless nature, which looked for the 
good in people rather than the evil. His gentleness 
was charming, and in a thousand ways he showed his 
sympathy with the poor and needy. The war had 
not hardened him. I have occasionally been led to 
intercede for a prisoner of war, and he always took 
the side of mercy. I have known ladies — mothers 
from the North — to intercede in behalf of their sons, 
and leave him with blessings and tears of gratitude. 

I have heard him speak of his old friends of West 
Point, on either side, with the deepest interest, and 
always with dignity and doing justice to his enemies 
in the conflict impartially and even heartily. He 
was a true gentleman and soldier. 

That any man should dare, at this time, when 
the true history of his conduct towards the prison- 
ers of war is made known and documentarily proved 
— should dare to repeat the extravagant and sensa- 
tional outcries of his vindictive maligners, and be 
low enough still to make capital of it for political, 
and South hating purposes, and that not only before 
mobs, but in the Congress of the United States, is 



232 EEMINlStSJJCES OF JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

almost incredible. The investigation of this subject 
is a dangerous thing for his defamers, be they who 
they may. 

His unselfishness was unsurpassed. Like a second 
Sir Philip Sidney, whenever offers of pecuniary help 
were made to him — much as he really needed it — 
he declined them courteously and advised that they 
be given to his poor soldiers and people. 

The events of his life are so closely connected 
with the events of the war, and have been spoken 
of and written of so often that I pass them. My 
connection with him was chiefly that of his pastor, 
and I will not prolong this article by retailing what 
I have said elsewhere. To many it would not be 
very interesting, perhaps. But all I have said of 
him, and his character is the result of my knowledge 
of him, through my personal, intimate intercourse 
during the war, during his imprisonment and since. 

It was worth seeing a man like him pass through 
the changing scenes of his eventful life, and watch 
the calm dignity, the firm determination, resolution 
to do his duty and trust in God and in the right- 
eousness of his cause. 

I remember the last meeting with him before the 
failure of our cause. I had dined with him in com- 
pany with Mr. Halcomb and a member of the Vir- 
ginia Legislature (I do not remember his name now), 
and after dinner we retired to his little ante-cham- 



"MY DEAD HERO." 233 

ber, speaking of various things, when General Lee 
came in, the soldier, the gentleman, the honored 
friend — just from the army before Petersburg. 
Calm and dignified as ever, he looked sad and 
thoughful, and the conversation soon turned on our 
condition. We all knew that it was as alarming as 
could be. Our friend from the Legislature said to 
him, " Cheer up, general. We have done a good 
work for you to-day. The Legislature has passed 
an order to raise an additional number of 15,000 
men for you." General Lee bowed his head meekly : 
" Yes, passing resolutions is kindly meant, but get- 
ting the men is another thing. Yes," he continued, 
with flashing eyes, "if I had 15,000 fresh additional 
troops, things would look very different." Mr. 
Davis knew how true were the fears of his general. 
It was sad to see these two men with their terrible 
responsibilities upon them and the hopeless outlook. 
Sad at heart, we left them to consult in lonely con- 
ference, I suppose about the possible necessity of 
evacuating Richmond. 

The 2d of April followed soon after this. Per- 
haps a strictly correct account may not be improper. 
It was Sunday, a beautiful Sunday like that of the 
first Manassas, and the air seemed full of something 
like a foreboding of good or bad. All expected a 
battle, and I know that wagons were held in readi- 
ness for transportation of commissary stores, ammu- 



234 EEMINBSCI^NCES OF JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

nition, etc. The beautiful church of St. Paul, in its 
chaste simplicity and symmetry, was filled to the 
utmost, as always during the war. Mr. Davis, who 
never failed to be in his pew unless when sick or 
absent from the city, was there, devoutly following 
the services of the church. It was the regular day 
for the Holy Communion. Nothing had occurred 
to disturb the congregation, though anxiety was in 
many a heart. As the ante-communion service was 
read and the people were on their knees, I saw the 
sexton go to Mr. Davis' pew and hand him what 
proved to be a telegram. T could not but see it. 
Mr. Davis took it quietly, not to disturb the congre- 
gation, put on his overcoat and walked out. On 
communion occasions I was wont to make a short 
address from the chancel. While doing so, the sex- 
ton came in repeatedly and called out this one and 
that one, all connected with the government and 
military service. Of course the congregation be- 
came very restless and I tried to finish my address 
as soon as I could, without adding to the threaten- 
ing panic. But when the sexton came to the chan- 
cel-railing and spoke to Rev. Mr. Kepler, who 
assisted me, they began to stir, and I closed as 
quickly as possible. Then Mr. Kepler told me the 
provost-marshal wanted to see me in the vestry- 
room. I went out and found Major Isaac H. Car- 
rington, who informed me that General Lee's lines 



"MY DEAD HERO." 235 

had been broken before Petersburg, that he was in 
retreat, and Richmond must be evacuated. As 
nothing would occur till the evening, he asked my 
advice whether the alarm should be rung at once or 
in the afternoon. We determined to wait till 3 
o'clock, and I returned to the chancel. As I entered 
I found the congregation streaming out of the 
church, and I sprang forward and called out, " Stop ! 
stop ! there is no necessity for your leaving the 
church ; " and most of them (all who had not left 
before I got back) returned. Then I recalled my 
appointment for service that night, told the people 
that w^e had met with disaster before Petersburg, 
and a meeting of the citizens would be called by the 
alarm-bell at 3 o'clock in the Capitol Square ; that 
there was no occasion for them to leave at once, and 
requested the communicants to stay to the celebra- 
tion. About 250 or 300 remained, and some felt as 
if they were kneeling there with the halter around 
their necks. The panic was so great. 

That evening Mr. Davis left Richmond. A week 
later, after the battle of Appomattox, General Lee 
surrendered, and whilst General Johnston was still 
in the field and Kirby Smith with his army on the 
Mississippi, the Confederacy was virtually at an 
end. 

By the request of the publishers the incidents of 
my intercourse with Mr. Davis — although they have 



236 KEMINie^gJ^CES OF JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

already appeared in some newspapers — are here in- 
serted to make the article complete. 

I cannot describe my meeting with Mr. Davis 
in his cell. He knew nothing of my coming, and it 
was difficult to control ourselves. 

Mr. Davis' room (he had been removed from 
the casemate, and the infamous outrage of putting 
him in chains) was an end room on the second floor, 
with a passage and window on each side of the room, 
and an ante-room in front separated by an open 
grated door — a sentinel on each passage and before 
the grated door of the ante-room. Six eyes were al- 
ways upon him day and night ; all alone, no one to 
see, no one to speak to ! 

I must hurry on. You may yourselves make out 
what our conversation must have been. 

The noble man showed the effect of the confine- 
ment ; but his spirit could not be subdued, and no 
indignity — angry as it made him at the time — could 
humiliate him. 

I was his pastor, and of course our conversation 
was influenced by that and there could be no hold- 
ing back between us. I had come to sympathize 
and comfort and pray with him. 

QUESTION OF COMMUNION. 

At last the question of the Holy Communion came 
up. I really do not remember whether he or I 



"MY DEAD HEKO," 237 

first mentioned it. He was very anxious to take it. 
He was a purely pious man, and felt the need and 
value of the means of grace. But there was one 
difficulty. Could he take it in the proper spirit — in 
the frame of a forgiving mind, after all the ill treat- 
ment he had been subjected to ? He was too up- 
right and conscientious a Christian man " to eat and 
drink unworthily'''' — ^.e., not in the proper spirit, 
and, as far as lay in him, in peace with God and man. 
I left him to settle that question between himself 
and his own conscience and what he understood 
God's law to be. 

In the afternoon General Miles took me to him 
again. I had spoken to him about the communion 
and he promised to make preparation for me. 

I found Mr. Davis with his mind made up. 
Knowing the honesty of the man, and that there 
would be, could be, "no shamming," nor mere 
"superstitious belief in the ordinance, I was delighted 
when I found him ready to commune. He had laid 
the bridle upon his very natural feeling and was 
ready to pray " Father, forgive them." 

A NOTABLE COMMUNION. 

Then came the communion — he and I alone, but 
with God. 

It was one of those cases where the Kubric can- 
not be binding. 



238 EEMInTS^B^TCES of JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

It was night. The fortress was so still that you 
could hear a pin fall. General Miles, with his back 
to us leaning against the fireplace in the ante-room ; 
his head in his hands not moving; the sentinels 
ordered to stand still, and they stood like statues. 

I cannot conceive of a more solemn communion 
scene. But it was telling upon both of us ; 1 trust 
for lasting good. 

Whenever I could I went down to see him, if only 
for an hour or two ; and when his wife was admitted 
to see him it was plain that their communings were 
with God. 

Time passed ; not a sign of any humiliating giving 
way to the manner in which he was treated; he 
was above that. He suffered, but was willing to 
suffer in the cause of the people who had given him 
their confidence and who still loved and admired 
and wept for the man that so nobly represented the 
cause which in their hearts they considered right 
and constitutional. 

A USELESS APPEAL TO STANTON. 

His health began to be affected. The officers of 
the fortress all felt that he ought to have the liberty 
of the fort, not only because that could in no way 
facilitate any attempt to escape, but because they 
knew he did not wish to escape. He wanted to be 
tried and defend and justify his course. I happened 



"MY DEAD HERO." 239 

to be in Washington for a few hours at that time, 
and as I had been told by Eev. Dr. Hall more than 
once that Mr. Stanton spoke of me very kindly, he 
encouraged me to see him about any matter I 
thought proper in Mr. Davis' case. 

1 went to see Mr. Stanton. He had recently lost 
his son and had been deeply distressed — softened one 
would think ; I hoped so. I was admitted. 

A bow and nothing more. 

I began by expressing my thanks to him for al- 
lowing me to visit Mr. Davis, and that as I was in 
town, I thought it would not be uninteresting to him 
to hear a report about Mr. Davis. 

Not a word in reply. 

I gradually approached the subject of Mr. Davis' 
health, and that without the least danger of any 
kind as to his safe imprisonment he might enjoy 
some privileges, especially the liberty of the fort, or 
there was danger of his health failing. 

The silence was broken. 

"It makes no difference what the state of the 
health of Jeff Davis is. His trial will soon come on, 
no doubt. Time enough till that settles it." 

It settled it in my leaving the presence of that 
man. 

BAILED. 

But the time came for his release. The way he 
conducted himself just showed the man, whom no 



240 .KEMlNlSftBliCES OF JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

distress could put down nor a glimpse of hope could 
unduly excite. He had seen too much and had 
placed his all in higher hands than man's. 

We brought him to the Spotswood and then to 
the custom-house. There the trial was to take 
place. We were in a carriage, the people, and espe- 
cially the colored people, testifying their sympathy. 
Mr. Davis was greatly touched by this. 

All know that the proceedings in court were very 
brief. 

Mr. Davis stood erect, looking steadily upon the 
judge, but without either defiance or fear. He 
was bailed, and the first man to go on his bond was 
Horace Greeley. 

Our carriage passed with difficulty through the 
crowd of rejoicing negroes with their tender affec- 
tion, climbing up on the carriage, shaking and kiss- 
ing his hand, and calling out, "God bless Mars 
Davis." But we got safely to the Spotswood. 

We found Mrs. Davis awaiting us, and the Hon. 
George Davis, Attorney-General of the last Cabinet, 
and a few others. 

Mr. George Davis and I just fell into each other's 
arms with tears in our eyes. 

THANKSGIVING. 

But Mr. Davis turned to me : " Mr. Minnigerode, 
you have been with me in my sufferings, and com- 



"MY DEAD HERO." 241 

forted and strengthened me with your prayers, is it 
not right that we now once more should kneel down 
together and return thanks ? " 

There was not a dry eye in the room. 

Mrs. Davis led the way into the adjoining room, 
more private ; and there, in the deeply-felt prayer 
and thanksgiving, closed the story of Jefferson Davis' 
prison life. 

His end has come and silence reigns over his 
grave. But I cannot close without referring to Mr. 
Davis' home life, just in a few words, for delicate re- 
gard for the feelings of the living, forbids me to draw 
the vail from that sacred spot. It was a bright, 
happy home, in the midst of our trials and dangers. 
He shone there in his best light, his gentle, court- 
eous, loving character, sustained by the truest wife 
in all his trials and sorrows, sharing them and bear- 
ing them with a constancy and loving bravery, such 
as is the glorious privilege of womanhood. Where- 
ever the memory of the " dead hero " is revived in 
the hearts of his people, there stands beside him, 
and will ever be loved and honored that noble wo- 
man, the wife of Jefferson Davis, 



16 



AN AMERICAN TO BE PROUD OF. 

BY COI.. CHARI,e;S MARSHAIvL, 
Member of General R. E. I/ee's Staff. 

THE last time I saw Mr. Davis was at a memorial 
meeting in Kichmond in honor of his distin- 
guished associate, Robert E. Lee, and to-night is 
the first opportunity I have had of giving voice to my 
undying respect and veneration for him. I wish to 
say something to defend him from the assaults made 
upon him, and to vindicate his right to the place 
he holds in the hearts of the Southern people, and 
which he will hold as long as a Southern heart beats. 
The course of the Federal Government toward 
Mr. Davis has caused him to become the representa- 
tive of the people of the Confederate States, and of 
those who held their views, in a much broader sense 
than he might otherwise have been. The people of 
the South, while agreeing in the main in assigning 
to Mr. Davis the foremost place among Confederate 
statesmen, and without dissent assigning to him the 
first rank as a patriot, a pure and disinterested 
leader and a fearless representative of their princi- 
ples, differed in their opinion as to the general policy 
of the Confederate Government under his adminis- 
tration. But the sight of Mr. Davis in chains, and 
242 



AN AMERICAN TO BE PEOUD OF. 243 

pursued with all the inventions of envy, hatred and 
malice, and all uncharitableness effaced these differ- 
ences, and the Southern people accepted him with 
one consent as the representative of their cause. 

Thus it came to pass that the policy of the Fed- 
eral Government more than anything else helped to 
keep in the memory of the people the exciting sub- 
jects connected with the war, and to minister to the 
fierce and vindictive passions that the war had kin- 
dled. The Northern people came to regard Mr. Da- 
vis most unjustly as a political sinner above all other 
sinners, and to the people of the South he became 
more fully than he had been during the war, and 
more fully, perhaps, than he would have been under 
different circumstances after the war, the representa- 
tive of Southern views, of Southern opinion and of 
Southern regret. 

On the one hand, the imprisonment of Mr. Davis, 
the threat of an ignominious death, the false charges 
made against him, the vile calumnies heaped upon 
him, turned upon him the full force of Northern pre- 
judice and passion. On the other hand, his sufferings, 
his persecution, and above all his high and unshaken 
courage, turned toward him the ardent Sympathy 
and love of his generous fellow-citizens of the South. 

As we stand to-day beside his open grave it can- 
not be inappropriate to consider for a moment the 
title of Mr. Davis to the place that he holds in the 



244 EEMINISeSJigES OF JEFFEESON DAVIS. 

hearts and minds of the Southern people, and in 
j)assing to inquire whether the judgment against him 
pronounced by almost all the people of the North is 
warranted by the facts. 

From the beginning of those unhappy days of 
blood and strife it has been the custom of Northern 
speakers and writers to represent the people of the 
South as having been led astray by their political 
leaders, and to have undertaken to destroy the old 
Union and to create an independent government for 
themselves under some sort of compulsion, and to 
speak of Mr. Davis as the leader. Nothing could 
be further from the truth. If ever there was a 
spontaneous movement of any people, that of the 
Southern people became such a movement when the 
proclamation of President Lincoln, of April 16, 
1861, presented the real issue to their astonished 
view. That proclamation and the hostile measures 
toward the South which quickly followed it forced 
the most reluctant to admit to themselves what they 
had long refused to believe— that the real issue be- 
tween the people of the South and those into whose 
hands the control of federal power had fallen involved 
the continued existence of constitutional government 
for the States of the South, indeed, for all the States, 
and the maintenance of rights older than the Consti- 
tution, older than the Union, and higher and more 
sacred than either the Union or the Constitution. 



AN AMERICAN TO BE PROUD OF. 245 

In such an emergency and with such vital inter- 
ests at stake, they greatly mistake the character of 
the Southern people who suppose that they needed 
to be led or driven to meet the advancing storm of 
battle as it rolled down upon them. It is safe to say 
that up to the middle of April, 1862, the greater 
part of the preparations for war had been made by 
the States, or by the spontaneous action of the peo- 
ple themselves. It will thus be seen that so far is it 
from the truth that Mr. Davis was in any sense the 
author or leader of the secession movement, he was 
selected by the people as best fitted by his ability, 
his experience, his fidelity to principle, his tried 
courage and his exalted character to lead a move- 
ment of the people in a time of imminent public 
danger. 

It is as the trusted leader in the cause I have de- 
scribed that Mr. Davis possessed and deserved, in the 
midst of the most arduous labors, the most perplex- 
ing cares, the greatest dangers, the sorest trials, the 
love and confidence of the great body of the South- 
ern people, including the most eminent commanders 
of their armies, and it is as such a leader in such a 
cause that he has this day gone to his grave followed 
by the undying gratitude and veneration of all for 
whom he endured and dared so much. There is 
nothing in his life and history to impair his title to 
that gratitude and veneration. If it be treason to 



246 EEMINISCBiitjpS OF JEFFEKSON DAVIS. 

prefer constitutional liberty and those rights which 
are as the breath of life to men of our race to terri- 
torial greatness and material wealth, then Mr. Davis 
was a traitor, and so, please God, may every Ameri- 
can be whenever that constitutional liberty and 
those ancient rights shall be again put in jeopardy 
by enemies at home or abroad. In his life and pub- 
lic services before the war there is everything to 
make us proud of our dead leader. 

If devotion to the public service, stainless integ- 
rity, great capacity for affairs and spotless purity of 
life can entitle a public man to respect and esteem, 
the career of Mr. Davis while connected with the 
government of the United States, whether as a sol- 
dier or statesman, is an example which no friend of 
his country would like to have neglected or forgotten. 

I have called your attention to one or two only of 
the reasons why we reverence the memory of Mr. 
Davis. With his death all prejudice should pass 
away — ^in his grave should be buried all animosities, 
and by the side of that grave all men should take a 
vow that in the service of the Government and the 
Union they will bring cheerfully and gladly, as far 
as lies in their power, the fidelity, the truth, the 
faith, the courage and the endurance of him whose 
name we are here to-night to honor. Who is there 
that is not proud to be the countryman of such a 
man, who was faithful to the last ? " 



ADDRESS AND TRIBUTE * 

BY GKNERAIv FITZHUGH I,KK, 
Governor of Virginia. 

WHEN the messenger of Death, flying with 
electric wing from the " Crescent City " to 
Virginia's capital, brought to us his recent 
sad tidings, the hand of mourning touched the heart- 
strings of our people, and Ihey are still vibrating 
with genuine grief to the accompanying voice of the 
mother Commonwealth — "How hath the mighty 
fallen." 

A PICTUKE OF OUE SOEKOW. 

Aye, a shadow has been cast over our plains and 
valleys; our rivers roll troubled to the sea; the 
covering cloak of gloom has ^o'erspread our towns 
and cities ; sorrow's cloud has tipped our mountain- 
tops. Virginia weeps for Jefferson Davis ! How 
appropriate is her lamentation! Bound as she has 
been to constitutional government from the early 

* In response to our request that he prepare an article specially for this 
book, General Lee writes that he regrets, on account of numerous engage- 
ments, that it would be impossible for him to prepare anything in time, 
but he kindly sends us the address, with some changes and additions, 
which he delivered in the Academy of Music, Kichmond, Va., on Decem- 
ber 21st, 1889, at a meeting held to induce Mrs. Davis to select Kichmond 
as the final burial-place of Mr. Davis. Publishers. 

247 



248 EEMINISCJSJiSES OF JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

formation of the republic by the sword of Washing- 
toiij the pen of Jefferson, the voice of Henry, the 
wisdom of Mason, and the efforts of Madison, in and 
out of the Federal Convention that constructed the 
Constitution, and mixed with the very marrow of 
her bones is the knowledge that in constructing that 
instrument in Philadelphia, in a body presided over 
by one of her sons, and in its ratification by her 
afterwards, there was no denial of her right to with- 
draw from the Union then formed when she should 
decide to do so ; and believing, too, in that sentence 
of the Declaration of Independence, drafted by 
another son, that it is the right of the people " to 
alter or abolish any form of government " that 
becomes, in their opinion, destructive to "life, 
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," and " institute 
a new government," Virginia was in thorough ac- 
cord with the constitutional construction of which 
Mr. Davis was so conspicuous a defender. 

It was easy then in those days of '61, for Virginia 
to exclaim, "Whither thou goest I will go, and 
where thou lodgest I will lodge ; thy people shall be 
my people, and thy God my God ! " 

WE WERE HIS PEOPLE. 

To-night this splendid assemblage, in gathering to 
pay homage to his memory, speaks in no uncertain 
tones to the country that our people to the end were 



AN ADDRESS AND TRIBUTE. 249 

his people, and that the God who looks down from 
His throne of mercy beyond the blue dome above, 
and binds up the broken hearts of the sorrowing wife 
and children, is the same God to whom we bow in 
humble submission to this exercise of His divine 
will. 

WHY SHE HONORS HIM. 

Do you ask me if Virginia honors Davis ? Ask 
her if she admires courage in a soldier, patriotism in 
a representative, conscientiousness in a Cabinet 
officer, integrity in a senator, fearless fidelity in a 
ruler, and unaffected piety in all that constitutes 
a Christian gentleman ! 

If Kentucky produced this hero, we do not forget 
that she was the daughter of Virginia. If Missis- 
sippi was his adopted State, we remember she is 
Virginia's sister, chained to her by the loving links 
of a mighty past, bound by the holy memories of 
the present, and united heart to heart in the great 
future unrolling before us. 

WITHOUT BOUNDS. 

As Dr. Hoge so eloquently expressed it on our 
memorial day, " there should be no geographical 
boundaries to the qualities which constitute noble 
manhood." "In seven-fold glory Hope spans the 
arch of Heaven, and weaves chaplets for the tomb," 
says another. Let that same Hope leap geographi- 



250 BEMINI^BfiKCES OF JEFFEKSON DAVIS- 

cal limits, and teach the American people to admire 
an American who measured up to the full height of 
all that constitutes a noble man. 

HIS SEKVICES TO THE COUNTRY. 

Cannot the North, South, East, and West remem- 
ber him when, as an officer of dragoons, his life was 
freely exposed for his country in the Indian wars ? 
Is not the heart of the whole republic big enough 
to throb with pride when the picture is presented of 
his charging at the head of his Mississippians, and 
planting, amid a storm of shot and shell, the Stars 
and Stripes on the grand plaza of Monterey ? Can- 
not his fame be trumpeted as an inheritance to all 
sections when he is portrayed bursting with fiery 
fury through the Mexican Lancers at Buena Vista, 
carrying proudly to victory the star-spangled banner, 
when he reddened the burning sands of old Mexico 
with his blood ? 

Does not all this, to use Mr. Davis' very words in 
referring to the battles of the Revolution, " form a 
monument to the common glory of our common 
country ? " 

Did not his splendid administration of the port- 
folio of war in Franklin Pierce's Cabinet redound to 
the credit and renown of the United States ? 

Was not his advocacy and introduction of new 
systems of tactics, iron gun-carriages, rifle-muskets 



ADDRESS AND TRIBUTE. 251 

and pistols, as well as the " Minnie ball/' and the 
strengthening of the defences on the sea-coast and 
frontier, productive of benefit to the whole republic? 

SECTIONAL HATE SHOULD PERISH. 

Perish, then, the sectional hate in the narrow 
mind of the mover of the resolution that he alone 
should be excluded from the benefits of the Mexican 
pension act, for well could Mr. Davis reply to him 
as Uncle Toby said to the fly, " Go, little wretch, 
there is room in the world for you and I." 

Away, too, forever, with the pitiful prejudice in 
the heart of the man who ordered his name to be 
chiselled from the stone which commemorated his 
successful efforts in erecting a bridge across the Po- 
tomac above Washington. What matters it now to 
the people of the South, if, after all he did to pro- 
mote the glory of the United States, that there is 
not magnanimity enough left to conform to the usual 
custom of putting at half-mast the flag over the 
department of the government he did so much to 
adorn, so long as the flag of their aflection floats so 
high above such action, and i^ so richly draped in 
the habiliments of mourning at his death ? 

PASSION DISPELS REASON. 

I know when the passions of men are inflamed 
reason departs ; I know amid the clash of arms the 
laws are silent; I know when blood is spilt human 



252 REMINlSeBUpES OF JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

hyenas roar ; but does all this prevent a civilized 
world from shuddering at the recital of the horrors 
of the inquisition or the terrors of the French Revo- 
lution ? 

I pray that the curtain of oblivion may be rung 
down to prevent future ages, when looking upon the 
great four-year drama of the past, from seeing the 
blood-stain upon the shield of a great government, 
placed there in the nineteenth century by the hands 
of a few men, some of whom, if reports are true, 
have already been visited by the power of an aveng- 
ing God. But so long as the sun rolls on in flaming 
splendor, bringing to light the innumerable mys- 
teries of life; so long as the moon gilds the grassy 
slope and the wild ravine ; so long as there is a rest- 
less sea, and the stars of heaven guide the traveler 
on his way, so long will the finer feelings of noble 
women and brave men quiver with shame when the 
finger of past history points to the murder of Wirtz ; 
the suspension of an innocent woman in mid-air, 
when the rope was closing around the neck of Mrs. 
Surratt ; and to that memorable 23d of May, 1865, 
when the cold, rough, rattling iron shackles were 
placed upon the limbs of Jefierson Davis. 

MR. DAVIS' IMPRISONMENT. 

The sea of oblivion cannot wash out that scene 
in the underground casemate at Fortress Monroe, 



ADDRESS AND TRIBUTE. 253 

nor can the ears shut out the voice as he exclaimed, 
" My God ! You cannot have been sent to bind me ! 
The war is over. I have no longer any country but 
America, and it is for the honor of America that I 
plead against this degradation. Kill me, kill me, 
rather than inflict on my people through me this 
insult." Sorry am I for the soldier who had to obey 
his orders, but may God forgive the man who issued 
them. I never can ! 

ANOTHER SCENE. 

But let us change the scene. It is the next day, 
and Washington, the capital city of the United 
States, is in holiday attire. Two hundred thousand 
armed men are marching in review before the Chief 
Magistrate of the republic. Conquering banners are 
jBiuttering in the sunlight of peace ; bayonets no lon- 
ger bristle ; the rifle's barrel is empty ; the point of 
the sword is turned to the scabbard ; the hearts of 
bronzed and brave veterans beat with happiness at 
the thought of the old mother at the family fireside, 
whose lips were already trembling to greet the sol- 
dier son's safe return from the war ; peace and joy 
reign in Washington ! Go to your homes. Oh, sol- 
diers of the Union ; there is an undivided country 
stretching from lake to gulf, from ocean to ocean. 
Tell your people of the brave men who were foemen 
worthy of your steel upon the blood-stained fields of 



254 KEMIN^i^jgNCES OF JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

conflict, who fought and lost without sacrificing their 
own honor or your self-respect. But whisper it low 
that the revenge of Government has been settled 
upon the one man who at that hour lay guarded by 
sentinels within his prison doors and by soldiers on 
the watch-towers without, but whose courage was so 
lofty that the harsh clank of the chain broke against 
it in vain. 

There were many in the ranks of those heavy bat- 
talions even at that time who would have averted 
such treatment to a prisoner of war if they could 
have done so. 

CHARGED WITH HERESY AND TREASON. 

But once again, let us change the scene. Stand 
forth for trial, Jefferson Davis. Upon your shoulder 
alone shall be placed a violated Constitution, the 
heresy of secession, and the ruby garment of treason. 
Let the victim be brou-ght forth and let him have 
the form of a trial, and then let him die the death of 
a traitor. And lo ! there he stands, clothed in the 
full robes of his Confederate faith, for no one knows 
better than he where the powers of the General 
Government should end and the reserved rights of 
the States begin. But the trial must proceed, for an 
hundred thousand dollars of blood-money had been 
offered for his head, and posterity must be taught 
that treason is odious and punishable with death. 
The party in power in the United States Senate and 



ADDEESS AND TKIBUTE. 255 

House of Kepresentatives were eager and impatient, 
and on the 25th day of September, 1865, called, by 
resolution, on the President, to know what was the 
matter. The reports of the Secretary of War and 
the Attorney-General were submitted, stating that 
while Virginia was the proper jplace to hold the 
court, it was not possible then to hold a peaceable 
United States court there, and Chief-Justice Chase 
said he would not hold court in a district under 
martial law. 

AN UNWILLINGNESS TO PKOSECUTE. 

Later on, on the 10th of April, 1866, the Judiciary 
Committee of the House thought there was no reason 
why the trial should not be at once proceeded with, 
and on the 8th of May, 1866, a grand jury of the 
United States at Norfolk — Judge Underwood pre- 
siding — found an indictment for treason. On the 
5th of June, at the session of the court held there, 
Mr. Davis's counsel begged that he be tried without 
delay, but the Government, it is said, was not ready. 
A year afterwards he was admitted to bail, and in 
December, 1868, a nolle prosequi was entered. 

NO LAW TO CONVICT. 

Why this unwillingness to prosecute? Ah, my 
countrymen, would I could say it proceeded from a 
forgiving Christian spirit in the bosom of those in 
power, but the stern cold facts tell us it was because 



256 BEMINiS^igNCES OF JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

the Government did not dare to test the case before 
a court of justice, for there is not a single line in the 
Constitution of the United States which prohibits 
the withdrawal of a State from the American Union, 
and there were still enough jurists learned in the 
law and constitutional lawyers profound in the con- 
struction of the Government left in the land to say 
so. And yet Mr. Davis never was a secessionist 
per se, but resigned his seat in the Senate reluctantly, 
hoping to the last that peace, not war, would be the 
country's fate. Indeed in his first message to the 
Confederate Congress he spoke of secession as a ne- 
cessity, not a choice. 

THE GOVERNOR'S PERORATION. 

Such is the man. Ladies and gentlemen, the 
capital city of the Confederacy remembers this even- 
ing. For four years he was a familiar figure on our 
streets, in his executive ofiice, and on horseback as 
he rode around the lines of fire then circling the city. 

When the ship of the new republic was launched 
he was called to the command and was with her 
" rocked in the cradle of the deep." Storms of war 
burst upon her deck before her machinery was even 
put in motion ; but through the thunder's roar, when 
the cordage was rent, when the breakers were dash- 
ing against her, when despair was visible upon the 
faces of some of the crew, and when she began to 
settle and sink amid the lurid flashing of the light- 



ADDRESS AND TRIBUTE. 257 

ning, the captain was seen standing calm, heroic, 
resolute, grand in all the glory of a man, grasping 
with a firm hand the helm as she sank down, down, 
in the sea of eternity. 

Within the bosom of Virginia repose the ashes of 
great men whose lips and lives have taught us to 
love the Commonwealth. 

She proudly numbers the graves of Presidents 
of the Republic. The Father of his country lies 
buried where the majestic Potomac sweeps in grace- 
ful curve upon the shores of Mt. Vernon. 

The grave of the distinguished author of the 
" Declaration of Independence " is found where the 
Little Mountain rears its proud head from the beauti- 
ful plains of Albemarle. The Sage of Montpelier, 
" the father of the Constitution," is resting quietly at 
its old homestead, while the remains of two others 
lie in beautiful Hollywood, near this city, where the 
waters of the James musically rolling from rock to 
rock are forever murmuring an eternal requiem. 

Virginia, holding in her loving embrace the sacred 
graves of five Presidents of the United States, opens 
wide her arms, and asks that she may be permitted 
to guard the last resting-place of the President of 
the Confederate States. 

Here let the soldier sleep whose sword flashes no 

longer in the forefront of battle. 

Here let the orator be buried upon whose lips 
17 



258 KEMINTSS^CES OF JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

audiences were once suspended magically as if by 
golden chains. ^ 

Here let the statesman rest, watched over and 
guarded by the city that ever received his loving 
attention. 

Here let the chieftain be brought and buried in 
May, when a monument is to be unveiled to one of 
his army commanders, when Nature spreads her 
carpet of green, when in the aisles of the orchard the 
blossoms are drifting and " the tulip's pale stalk in 
the garden is lifting a goblet of gems to the sun." 
And here too let us erect a monument that will 
stand in lofty and lasting attestation to tell our chil- 
dren's children of our love for the memory of Jeffer- 
son Davis. 




Q 
< 

w 

H 

> 

Q 

o 
»: 

W 

w 



REMINISCENCES 

BY UNITED STATES SENATOR REAGAN, 
Member of the Davis Cabinet 

I HAVE had a personal acquaintance with Mr, 
Davis for thirty-two years. I have known him 
in the domestic circle as the most genial and 
lovable man I ever knew. I have been with him 
around the council board and witnessed the great 
care and ability with which he considered great 
public questions. I have been with him on the bat- 
tle-field, and have seen the calm courage with which 
he faced the chances of death. I have been with 
him in the hours of victory and of triumph, and 
never saw him unduly elated. I have been with 
him in defeat and disaster, and never saw him un- 
duly depressed. The people he served respected him 
for his virtues and integrity. They admired him for 
his ability and devotion to duty and to them. They 
reverenced him for the grandeur and nobility of his 
character. And they mourn his death with un- 
feigned sorrow. 

The public had the impression that Mr. Davis was 
an austere and arbitrary man, when just the reverse 
was the case. He had two characters — one for pub- 
lic affairs and one for his personal and private relar 

259 



260 REMINISe^gp OF JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

tions. He was not hasty at forming conclusions, and 
was ever ready to receive suggestions from his 
friends and political advisers. I remember well the 
first Cabinet meeting I attended. Mr. Davis then 
informed his g,dvisers that he wanted us to be as 
frank with him as he would be with us. In the 
preparation of his messages to Congress he invited 
the fullest and freest discussion of the subjects 
treated. I remember well one of his favorite re- 
marks, and that was, " If a paper can't stand the 
criticism of its friends, it will be in a bad way when 
it gets into the hands of its enemies." I have 
always remembered that remark, because it has fre- 
quently been my guide in matters of legislation. 

In the organization of the various departments 
under the Confederacy, Mr. Davis, at one of the 
Cabinet meetings, informed us that we would be 
called upon to select the men whom we needed to 
assist us, and he would appoint them. But he im- 
pressed upon us the fact that we would be held re- 
sponsible for the conduct and efficiency of the ap- 
pointees. Mr, Davis was a civil service reformer in 
a certain sense. He was firm in his conclusions and 
patient in his investigations. In his domestic life 
he was amiable and gentle, but in official life he 
knew no word but duty. I remember very well our 
last formal Cabinet meeting. It was after we had 
left Richmond, and were traveling through the 



EEMINISCENCES. 261 

southern portion of North Carolina. It was just 
near the border of the two States, North and South 
Carolina. It was under a big pine-tree that we 
stopped to take some lunch. Mr. Trenholm, the 
Secretary of the Treasury, was absent. He had 
been taken sick at Charlotte, and after trying to 
keep up with us for about twenty miles he gave out 
and tendered his resignation. The resignation of Mr, 
Trenholm was discussed, and it was finally accepted, 
and I was selected to take charge of his office in 
conjunction with that of Postmaster-General. I re- 
member on that occasion Mr. Davis said, when I 
requested to be relieved from that additional duty : 
"You can look after that without much trouble. We 
have concluded that there is not much for the Secre- 
tary of the Treasury to do, and there is but little 
money left for him to steal." That was in April, 
1865. 

Some time after that George Davis, the Attorney- 
General, asked Mr. Davis' advice about retiring from 
the Cabinet. The Attorney-General said he wanted 
to stand by the Confederacy, but his family and his 
property were at Wilmington, and he was in doubt 
as to where his duty called him. " By the side of 
your family," promptly responded Mr. Davis. After 
the Attorney-General left us there were only four 
members of the Cabinet left to continue the journey 
to Washington, Ga., which was our destination. We 



262 EEMINISCeS^ES of JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

put up at Abbeville, S. C, for the night, because we 
were informed that a lot of Yankee cavalry were in 
Washington, Ga. At that point Benjamin said he 
proposed to leave the country and get as far away 
from the United States as possible. Mr. Davis asked 
him how he proposed to get down to the coast. 
"Oh," replied Benjamin, "there is a distinguished 
Frenchman whose name and initials are the same as 
mine, and as I can talk a little French I propose to 
pass myself off as the French Benjamin." 

While passing through South Carolina I was par- 
ticularly struck with Mr. Davis' generosity. We 
were passing a little cabin on the road, and we 
stopped to get a drink of water. A woman, poorly 
clad, came out to serve us. She recognized Mr. 
Davis, and informed him that her only son was 
named after him. It was a very warm day, and the 
cool water was very refreshing. Mr. Davis took 
from his pocket the last piece of coin he possessed 
and gave it to the woman and told her to give it to 
his namesake. At our next stopping-place we com- 
pared our cash accounts, and Mr. Davis had a few 
Confederate notes, which was every cent of money 
possessed in this world. 

Mr. Davis was one of the few men who measured 
the full force of the war. He from the first con- 
tended that it was likely to last a number of years 
instead of a few months, as many persons predicted. 



REMINISCENCES. 263 

It was at first proposed to enlist an army of two or 
three hundred thousand men for six months, for bj 
that time it was supposed that the war would be 
over. Mr. Davis promptly disposed of that sugges- 
tion by declaring that it would take at least a year 
to organize an efficient army, as soldiers could not 
be made in a few days. He said it would be wiser 
to establish a smaller army — one that we could af- 
ford to arm and equip. From the first he main- 
tained that it would be a long and bloody war, but 
many Southern men differed with him, and the re- 
sult was we were obliged to pass that terrible act of 
conscription to keep our men in the service. 

There is another question that I wish to touch 
upon in this connection. I have frequently referred 
to the question of his disabilities, and we have dis- 
cussed the subject from various standpoints. Invari- 
ably Mr. Davis declared that he could not conscien- 
tiously ask to have his disabilities removed, for he 
could not induce himself to believe that he had done 
wrong. He was firm in his convictions on that 
point, and nothing could move him. 

Mr. Davis was greatly misjudged in many ways. 
He was the most devout Christian I ever knew, and 
the most self-sacrificing man. When his plantation 
was in danger of being seized and the property de- 
stroyed, he was urged by friends to send a force of 
men to protect it. " The President of the Confeder- 



264 EEMINlSOSJigES OF JEFFEESON DAVIS. 

acy," he responded, "cannot afford to use public 
means to preserve private interests, and I cannot 
employ men to take care of my property." And so 
when his hill property in Hinds County was threat- 
ened, and all his books and papers were in danger of 
destruction, he again resisted all persuasions of 
friends to have them protected. 

The memory of his services, of his virtues, and of 
his vicarious sufferings demand this alike from the 
Christian sentiment and from the manhood of those 
he served so faithfully. And it is matter of special 
gratification that the general tone of the greater part 
of the press of the country. North and South, have 
treated kindly the m.emory of this illustrious man. 

When General Grant suffered in affliction, the 
people of the South as well as North gave him their 
sincere sympathy. When he died the people of the 
South, as well as of the North, mourned his death. 
The same feeling of respect for genius, for greatness 
and for worth, and the same feeling of Christian 
charity for the dead, and of sympathy for the be- 
reaved who survive, has shown itself North as well 
as South for Mr. Davis. 

This is as it should be, and will have its influence 
in restoring that more perfect fraternity of feeling 
which is so necessary and so important to the wel- 
fare and happiness of the whole country. 

It is fitting in this connection that I should add 



KEMINISCENCES 265 

the following dispatch and letter, published in the 
Washington Star of December 12, 1889, showing Mr. 
Davis' participation in this feeling of charity and fra- 
ternity : 

A CHAKACTERISTIC LETTER. 

When General Grant was dying at Mount Mc- 
Gregor the Boston Glohe instructed its New Orleans 
correspondent to interview Jefferson Davis. Mr. 
Davis was not seen personally, but a few days later 
he penned the following letter : 

"Dear Sir — Your request in behalf of a Boston journalist for me to 
prepare a criticism of Gen. Grant's military career cannot be complied 
with for the following reasons : 

" 1. Gen. Grant is dying. 

" 2. Though he invaded our country, it was with an open hand, and, as 
far as I know, he abetted neither arson nor pillage, and has since the war, 
I believe, showed no malignity to Confederates either of the military or 
civil service. 

" Therefore, instead of seeking to disturb the quiet of his closing hours, 
I would, if it were in my power, contribute to the peace of his mind and 
the comfort of his body. 

[Signed] "Jefferson Davis." 

The people of the Southern States have manifested 
their deep sorrow for the death of Mr. Davis by mes- 
sages of condolence, by resolutions of public meet- 
ings, by the action of municipal governments, by 
proclamations of mayors of cities and Governors of 
States, by resolutions of legislative assemblages, by 
draping public and private buildings in mourning, 



266 



KEMINISB^HCES OF JEFFERSON DAVIS. 



through the columns of the newspapers, by appro- 
priate religious services throughout the South on the 
day of his funeral, and by the suspension of all busi- 
ness on the day of his funeral. 

Such honors have never before been shown to the 
leader of a lost cause, and few of the successful he- 
roes of the world have ever received such honors as 
have been paid to the memory of Mr. Davis. The 
hero and leader of a lost cause, after one of the most 
stupendous struggles known to history, denied the 
right of citizenship, powerless to confer benefits on 
others, he still enjoyed the unbounded respect and 
confidence and love and gratitude of the people he 
served with so much ability and fidelity and courage. 
And while in law an exile among the people who 
loved him so much, he bore imprisonment, and 
chains, and deprivation of political rights, and the 
bitter denunciation of his enemies, with a manly par 
tience and Christian fortitude never before shown by 
mortal man under such circumstances except in the 
case of General Robert E. Lee. But his trials and 
sufferings were greater than those which fell upon 
our great general. Hannibal, the great Carthagenian 
general, and Napoleon, the conqueror of Europe, 
when defeat and disaster fell upon them, complained 
much of their misfortunes. But Jefferson Davis has 
borne his misfortunes in dignified and uncomplaining 
silence. It may be permitted to his friends to say 



REMINISCENCES. 267 

that in every position he filled in life, his fidelity 
commanded respect and his ability compelled admi- 
ration; whether as a young officer of the United 
States army, as a successful planter, as a student of 
the sciences during the years of his retirement from 
the public service, as a member of the United States 
House of Representatives, as a colonel in the Mexi- 
can War whose genius and courage won the victory 
of Buena Yista, as Secretary of War in perfecting 
the organization of the army and otherwise improv- 
ing the service, in directing the surveys for the Pa- 
cific Railroad, in aiding in the extension of the wings 
of the national Capitol and in the construction of 
the Smithsonian Institution and constructing the 
water-works of the national capital, and in the im- 
provement of the public grounds of that city ; or as 
Senator of the United States, where he showed him- 
self the peer of our greatest statesmen and debaters, 
or as President of the Confederate States, where he 
did all that human skill and courage could do to 
sustain the cause in whose service he was engaged. 
The glories of all these achievements, however, it 
seems to me, were surpassed by the patience and for- 
titude with which he met the disastrous results of 
defeat. 

As illustrative of Mr. Davis' self-denial, of his 
sympathy for the poor and afflicted, and for the 
wounded and disabled soldiers who suffered in a 



268 REMINIs8ft!ieES OF JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

common cause with him, I give an extract from a 
dispatch sent by Henry W., Grady, editor of the 
Atlanta Constitution, in answer to a dispatch sent to 
him from the city of New York : 

To the Editor of the WoM: 

"Atlanta, Ga., Dec. 6. — I thank you heartily for 
your dispatch. Three or four times in the past ten 
years, touched by Mr. Davis' known poverty, we 
have started to make a fund for him, and once had a 
considerable amount subscribed without his knowl- 
edge. Each time he gratefully but firmly declined, 
saying that so many widows and orphans of our sol- 
diers and so many disabled veterans themselves were 
poor and in need of the necessaries of life, that all 
generous offerings had best be directed to them and 
to their betterment. He has grown steadily poorer, 
and I fear leaves his family nothing." 

This is not a proper occasion for the discussion of 
the question of the righteousness of the cause which 
he served with such fidelity and ability, and for 
which he has suffered so much. That must be de- 
ferred to other occasions and probably to other times. 
But his friends may safely leave his fame to the un- 
impassioned verdict to be rendered by the historian 
of the future. 



ADDRESS. 

BY GOVERNOR J. B. GORDON. 

* State of Georgia, Executive Department. 
Atlanta, Ga., January 22, 1890. 
R. H. Woodward & Co., Baltimore, Md. 

Gentlemen :— Your letter received. The preparation of an article for 
your "Reminiscences of Jefferson Davis" would require more time than 
it is possible for me now to devote to it. It would, indeed, be a labor of 
love, if I were able to accomplish it, but my time is so completely pre- 
occupied that I cannot attempt it. 

Very truly yours, 

J. B. Gordon. 

WITHOUT any time for preparation, or one 
moment's consecutive thought, you must al- 
low me to speak as the spirit of the occasion 
may prompt. 

To me, as to you, this is one of the saddest, and 
yet one of the sweetest and proudest occasions of all 
my life. Saddest, because it is the occasion upon 
which we have carried to his last resting-place the 
great chieftain whom we loved, followed and hon- 
ored. Sweetest, because we have laid him to rest 
after "life's fitful fever," with all the honors we 
could bestow, embalmed in the esteem and bound- 

*In response to our invitation to Governor Gordon to prepare something 
specially for the book, he sends us the above letter, and encloses the speech 
which he delivered in New Orleans on December 6, 1889. — Pubs. 

269 



270 REMINISC8|H|ES OF JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

less affections of a great and grateful people. 
Proudest to me, because it was my good fortune to 
participate in giving to that grand man, dead as he 
was, the tribute of my respect and love; and now 
the privilege of taking you all to my heart and say- 
ing, as he would have said with the last lisp of his 
tongue, God bless you, my fellow sufferers. 

It was my great privilege to know Mr. Davis 
well, although, as stated on another occasion, I saw 
him but twice in that eventful period from 1861 to 
the autumn of 1865. I saw him on the battle-field 
of Manassas, as he rode in triumph, with the stars 
and bars of the Confederacy floating in the white 
smoke of the battle, and with the shouts of his vic- 
torious legions ringing in his ears. 

The next time I saw him was in prison at For- 
tress Monroe. It is no exaggeration to say that he 
rose to grander height as prisoner of State, as self- 
poised and unbending he bore his misfortunes, and 

WORE HIS SHACKLES FOR ALL HIS PEOPLE. 

I have followed his course and marked his career 
from that hour to this with an unfaltering faith that 
he would neither lower this high standard nor betray 
the holy trust which he carried in his person. I never 
doubted for one moment how he would live or how 
he would die, and I have not been disappointed. 

To us, whatever it may be to mankind, it is a 



ADDKESS. 271 

glorious heritage that this Southland has produced 
so grand a vicarious sufferer. Here is a man upon 
whom the gaze of Christendom was concentrated, and 
upon whom criticism has expended all its arrows, 
and yet no blemish is found in his private character. 

It was fitting that around his bier and his body, 
sacred to us, should have been wrapped the flag that 
went down with his fall from power. But it was 
also fitting that above his dead body the stars and 
stripes of the Eepublic, for the honor and glory of 
which his blood was shed, should also have floated. 

Could his cold lips speak his injunction would be 
to us be true to your Confederate memories; be 
true to the past, but be true to the future of the 
Union and the Republic as well. 

The flag of the Republic, which is our flag in all 
the ages to come, was made dearer because Jefferson 
Davis fought in its defense. It is a glorious thought 
to me, as doubtless to you, that there is not a star 
upon its blue field that has not been made brighter 
by Southern courage and Southern patriotism. That 
there is not one of its red stripes that is not made 
deeper and richer by Southern blood. That there is 
not one of its white lines that has not been made 
purer, whiter and holier by Southern character in 
all public offices. 

Now, my countrymen, I come to the debt-we owe 
the living. Mr. Davis is dead. The grief is ours. 



272 REMINISeSiigES OF JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

full and sacred. His fame belongs not only to the 
South, but to his country and to Christendom. 
Ours it is to cherish. Ours the still higher privilege 
of taking care of that memory by taking care of 
those who were 

IMPOVERISHED IN OUR CAUSE. 

I have been told since I came to New Orleans 
that his widow, following his illustrious example, de- 
clines to accept such tributes as we may choose to 
offer. 

My brothers, the reply I make is, that we did not 
ask the consent of Jefferson Davis or of his family, 
when we put the burden upon him that led to 
shackles for our sakes, nor will we consult any one 
now, when we choose to pay the tribute due to him 
and to his children, out of our pockets. If it be 
thought best to pay it in a particular channel, all 
right, but calling God to witness the purity of mo- 
tive and consecration which we feel in this duty, we 
intend, because of our love for him as our represen- 
tative; because of our love for those who have 
shared his fate ; because of our love for our own 
honor, we intend to see to it that his wife and chil- 
dren do not suffer want. 

The outside world may not appreciate it, but, so 
far as you and I are concerned, we feel that not one 
dollar of property is ours so long as his wife and his 



ADDRESS. 273 

child need our assistance. This we intend to ren- 
der because Southern manhood demands it as a tri- 
bute to the man who suffered for us. [Great ap- 
plause.] I shall not insult you by asking you if 
you are ready. 

18 



IMPRISONMENT OF JEFFERSON DAVIS.* 

BY HON. S. TKAKI.K WAI.I.IS, 
Member of Baltimore Bar. 

THE theme of this little volume, f in itself and 
without words, is at once a sermon and a his- 
tory. It tells of a change in the political 
institutions of a mighty nation more rapid and more 
thorough than any other which the annals of men 
record. It points to the melancholy spectacle of 
a government, founded on consent and consecrated to 
freedom, converted by the willing hands of a major- 
ity of the people whose birthright it- was, into a 
despotism controlled by popular passion and sec- 
tional interests. It signalizes, by a conspicuous and 
incontestable example, the substitution of a scheme 
of arbitrary violence, for a system based on written 
constitutions and ruling and punishing only through 
its lawSo More sad, a thousand-fold, than all, it 
proclaims to us — whether as cause or effect it is 
unnecessary here to discuss — the decadence of that 
high and manly spirit, that generous and wholesome 
sense of right, that love of justice and fair-play, 

*This article, written by Mr. Wallis soon after the release of Mr. 
Davis, has been kindly furnished for this volume. — [Pubs.]. 
t Prison Life of Jeflferson Davis, by John J. Craven, M.D. 
274 



IMPEISONMENT OF JEFFERSON DAVIS. 275 

which animated and exalted our once noble institu- 
tions, through the first stage of their development, 
as with the inspiration of a great and living soul. 
The children are yet clinging round our knees, who 
were born before " State prisoners " were imagined 
as a possibility upon our soil, and the generation 
who preceded them — scarce half-grown even now — 
were taught the stories of the Doges' Palace, the 
Tower and the Bastille, of Olmiitz and St. Helena 
and Ham, as a warning against the wickedness of 
kings and lords, and a lesson of thankfulness to the 
good God, who had made a republic their birth- 
place. And yet, to-day, after having for five years 
seen with approval every fortress in the North 
stuffed full of men and women, dragged from their 
homes, at midnight or at mid-day, without warrant 
or authority or even form of law ; after having wit- 
nessed the infliction upon large classes of their 
neighbors and friends, of all the contumely and out- 
rage that brutality suggested to capricious and 
unbridled power, as a penalty for the exercise of 
freedom of opinion ; the masses of the Northern 
people can behold, not only without shame, but with 
rejoicing, the long imprisonment and barbarous 
personal ill treatment of one of their most prominent 
and distinguished fellow-citizens, in notorious viola- 
tion of the most rudimental of the principles, on 
which they go on vaunting, day after day, that their 



276 EEMINlSfiiKCES OF JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

government reposes. And this too, not in the heat 
of conflict, when the best of men go sometimes mad 
with zeal or passion, but in the midst of profound 
and established peace, when those who were lately 
in arms against them are not only vanquished but 
crushed, and nothing stands in the way of perfect 
harmony and reconstruction but the incapacity or 
unwillingness of the victors to be either generous or 
just. 

Nor in the political antecedents or personal char- 
acter or conduct of the chief victim, upon whom 
the unmanly vengeance of the Nortliern people is 
thus wreaked, is there anything to excuse, or even 
furnish a reasonable pretext for so relentless a per- 
secution. There is no public man now living in the 
United States who has gone through the political 
conflicts of the last twenty years with a more stain- 
less name. As a soldier, a senator, a Cabinet 
minister of the old Union, gallant, able, active and 
efficient always, and developing those positive and 
somewhat aggressive traits of character, which pro- 
voke and stimulate antagonism and resentment, he 
never found an enemy so reckless as to question his 
patriotism or asperse his purity. Even now, shorn 
as he is of power and influence, the vanquished and 
captive chief of a ruined and, of course, unpopular 
cause, with all the personal and official animosities 
and criminations which belong to such a position 



IMPKISONMENT OF JEFFERSON DAVIS. 277 

crowding round him, there is yet to be heard among 
his constituents the first whisper of imputation upon 
his loyalty to the people who chose him as their 
leader, or his integrity in the administration of his 
office according to his judgment. Of those particu- 
lar political opinions which are now held to be his 
crime, he not only made no concealment, while he 
was in the service of the United States, but was 
their open, avowed, conspicuous champion. He was 
elected and appointed to places of honor and respon- 
sibility, with the full knowledge, on the part of both 
Government and people, that he was the uncompro- 
mising advocate of States rights, in the broad South- 
ern understanding of that term, and that, as he wrote 
to Mr. Bostick in the well-known letter of May 
14th, 1858, the honor and safety of the Southern 
people, their respect for their ancestors, and their 
regard for their posterity would require them to 
" meet, at whatever sacrifice," any issue in which the 
maintenance of those .rights might be involved.* 
The resolutions introduced by him into the Senate 
of the United States in February or March, 1860, 
and in which his political creed on the vexed ques- 
tion of State sovereignty was set forth, did no more 
than place permanently upon record, the familiar 
and oft defended doctrines and principles of his 
whole public life. He was therefore as well known 

* See McCluskey's Pol. Text Book, 747, 



278 REMINIsSftiCES OF JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

to be a secessionist at Charleston, in 1860, when 
General Butler voted fifty times to make him a can- 
didate for the Presidency, as he now is, at Fortress 
Monroe, where General Butler would gibbet him, 
without trial, to-day, for the inconceivable crime of 
secession. Of his entire and honorable freedom 
from every imputation that could justly make a 
gentleman ashamed — unless the wickedness, incom- 
prehensible to General Butler, of risking his life and 
fortune in defence of his most cherished convictions, 
be supposed to belong to that class — there can be no 
evidence more conclusive than the attempts which 
have been made under the auspices of the high 
officials of the Federal Government, to bring his 
name and person into unjust contempt, and to 
attract to him, by false and infamous charges, the 
vindictive hatred of the populace. 

The reader will recall the wretched and indecent 
fabrications transmitted by the Associated Press, 
from Washington, under the inspiration of Mr. Sec- 
retary Stanton, at the time of the capture of Mr. 
Davis, whereby the foolish and credulous were in- 
structed that "Jeff." was making his way to the 
Mississippi, with a wagon-load of gold which he had 
seized as his private plunder, and that when taken 
prisoner he was disguised " in his wife's crinoline," 
and pretended to be a woman. Of course, the 
authors of so vulgar and paltry a defamation well 



IMPRISONMENT OF JEFFERSON DAVIS. 279 

knew that it would impose on no one who under- 
stood the character of Mr. Davis, or had observed 
his public or private career, and that it would turn 
to nothing in the course of time, along with the 
thousand other official slanders which had hissed 
and died during the war. But they knew, equally 
well, that it would tend to hinder, for a while, 
among the masses of the people, that respectful 
sympathy which spontaneously opens itself to the 
misfortunes of a brave and fallen foe, and that it 
would contribute its share towards preparing them 
for the wholly un-American system of persecution 
which the parties in question had already devised 
for the torment of their victim. 

And here, it may properly be observed, that there 
was one thing more than any other and perhaps 
than all others put together, in which the Cabinet 
organized by Mr. Lincoln displayed especial and re- 
markable sagacity. Indeed, in summing up their 
career as an administration, we might perhaps be 
justified in saying that it was at the foundation of 
their whole success, and stood them, throughout, in- 
stead of those high qualities of statesmanship, 
which such a crisis as the Confederate War would 
have developed in any nation less devoid of really 
great men than the Northern section of the United 
States. We refer to that perfect comprehension of 
the passions, prejudices, susceptibilities, vices, virtues. 



280 KEMINlSCftMCES OF JEFFEESON DAVIS. 

knowledge and ignorance of the people upon whom 
they had to practice. They knew every quiver of 
the popular pulse, and what it signified. They 
could weigh out, to a grain, the small quantity of 
truth to which the public appetite was equal, and 
they perfectly understood and measured the pre- 
ternatural extent to which the popular digestion 
could assimilate falsehood. They were masters of 
every artifice that could mystify or mislead, and of 
every trick that could excite hope, or confidence, or 
rage. They knew every common-place and clap- 
trap that would affect the' popular imagination or 
temper, as familiarly and as accurately as a stage 
manager is acquainted with the oldest of his the- 
atrical properties. . Understanding their part thus 
well, they played to it, with wonderful tact and ef- 
fect. They filled their armies, established their fi- 
nancial system, controlled the press and silenced 
opposition by the same universal system of ingenious 
and bold imposture. I have before me an editorial 
article of Mr. Raymond, of the New York Times, in 
which he testifies that on the night after the battle 
of Bull Eun, he prepared an accurate and candid 
statement of the federal disaster, and left it at the 
office of the Telegraph, to be transmitted to the 
journal which he conducted, but that the censor of 
the War Department, to his surprise and without 
his knowledge, caused his report to be suppressed. 



IMPKISONMENT OF JEFFERSON DAVIS. 281 

and forwarded in its place the well-known telegram, 
in which the triumph of the federal arms, at all 
points, was announced in startling capitals to the de- 
lighted North. The equally notorious despatch of 
Mr. Stanton to Governor Curtin, after the battle of 
Fredericksburg, is but one out of a thousand evi- 
dences that the Carnot — as Mr. Seward called him 
— of the Lincoln Cabinet, was as notable an adept 
as his predecessor, in that ancient art, which was 
practiced with less impunity in the days of Ananias 
and Sapphira. 

It was not to be expected that the War Depart- 
ment of the United States, thus taught by long suc- 
cess the value of judicious falsehood, should content 
itself with seeking merely to bring into contempt 
the head of the fallen Confederate Government. 
The war, in itself so violently antagonistic to the 
whole spirit and principles of the Constitution of the 
United States, could not, of course, be conducted 
without unconstitutional means and appliances. 
Among the most iniquitous of the contrivances re- 
sorted to was the anomalous, inquisitorial tribunal, 
called the Bureau of Military Justice. A few years 
ago no man would have dared to suggest such an en- 
gine of persecution to the most unscrupulous of po- 
litical organizations in this country. If established, 
it would have collapsed in a week, under the scorn 
and indignation of a people yet uneducated by phil- 



282 KEMINlSftHiCES OF JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

anthropy in violence and usurpation. Nevertheless, 
at the close of the war, it exercised almost unlimited 
power for evil. It was the centre of all the schemes 
of hidden wickedness and mischief which consumed 
so many millions of secret service money and raised 
up and debauched such an army of spies and in- 
formers throughout the land. It had grown to mo- 
nopolize the getting up of persecutions, the organi- 
zation of military commissions, the fabrication o± 
evidence and the subornation of witnesses. Guided 
by the constitutional doctrines of Solicitor Whiting, 
the legal and military ethics of Dr. Lieber, and the 
systematized and ingenious malignity and invention 
of Judge Advocate General Holt, it could only have 
been surpassed, had Jeffreys, Yidocq and Haynau 
been revived to sit in judgment together. Had its 
plans not been thwarted, by the interposition of 
President Johnson, when the Supreme Court, under 
the most disreputable political influences, postponed, 
for a whole year, the promulgation of its opinion 
upon the constitutionality of Military Commissions, 
it would have opened a general campaign of judicial 
murder, beside which the Bloody Assizes of King 
James' Chief Justice would have lost their hitherto 
pre-eminent infamy. Under the inspiration of this 
Bureau, with the sympathetic assistance of Mr. Sec- 
retary Stanton, the well known proclamation was is- 
sued, in which Mr. Davis was charged with having 



IMPKISONMENT OF JEFFERSON DAVIS. 283 

been accessory to the assassination of President 
Lincoln. It was a painful feature of that abominable 
outrage, that the confidence of President Johnson 
should have been abused by his official advisers to 
the extent of inducing him, in the first moment of 
his accession, to put his name to such a paper. To 
consider even for a moment, here, whether the par- 
ties by whom the calumny was made to take an 
official shape had any grounds for suspecting it to be 
true, which the bitterest honorable enemy of Mr. 
Davis would not have scorned to examine, would be 
an insult to our readers, not less than an indignity 
to the gallant gentleman against whose life and 
honor the poisoned shaft was aimed. It is safe to 
say that not one of the conspirators at the War De- 
partment ever harbored, for an instant, a sincere be- 
lief in the truth of the charge, either before or after 
it was made. If it had been honestly started under 
the passionate influences of the troubled hour in 
which it saw the light, it would have been manfully 
disavowed when the excitement was over, and espe- 
cially after the disgraceful and utter failure of the 
attempt to maintain it, with other injurious accusa- 
tions, before the military inquisitions which decreed 
the murder of Mrs. Surratt and Captain Wirz. But 
it had done its work in filling the minds of the ig- 
norant with prejudice and stimulating the hatred 
and fanaticism of party, and to have admitted its 



284 EEMINISC?!^i*:S OF JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

falsehood would have been to create a just reaction 
in favor of the victim. It was therefore allowed to 
stand without qualification as it was uttered, until 
the publication of the confidential correspondence 
between Mr. Holt and his agent Conover, disclosed 
not merely the perjury which had been suborned, 
but the deliberate and disgusting circumstances of 
the purchase. Then, for the first time, the head of 
the Bureau of Military Justice found himself forced 
into an attitude of defence, and was compelled to 
vindicate his integrity in the newspapers by a weak 
attempt to shift the blame upon the unsuspecting 
credulousness of his nature. It is now probably too 
late for him to escape the retributive justice of pub- 
lic and historical opinion, by pretending to punish 
the perjury-broker, whose hirelings he paid and 
used. Posterity will contemplate these incidents 
and others like them in the history of the war with 
inexpressible astonishment, that the gigantic hopes 
and wonderful resources of such a nation as this 
should have been entrusted, in the vital moment of 
its destiny, to minds so little and souls so mean. 
Nor will they, we are sorry to believe, forget that 
for rulers like these and for their doings, the respon- 
sibility, under a Republican form of Government, is 
upon the people who endure such rule. The im- 
partial times to come will hardly understand how a 
nation, which not only permitted, but encouraged its 



IMPEISONMENT OF JEFFEKSON DAVIS. 285 

government to declare medicines and surgical in- 
struments contraband of war, and to destroy by fire 
and sword the habitations and food of non-com- 
batants, as well as the fruits of the earth and the 
implements of tillage, should afterwards have clam- 
ored for the blood of captive enemies, because they 
did not feed their prisoners out of their own starva- 
tion and heal them in their succorless hospitals. 
And when a final and accurate development shall 
have been made of the facts connected with the ex- 
change of prisoners between the belligerents, and it 
shall have been demonstrated, as even now it is per- 
fectly understood, that all the nameless horrors 
which are recorded of the prison-houses upon both 
sides, were the result of a deliberate and inexorable 
policy of non-exchange on the part of the United 
States, founded on an equally deliberate calculation 
of their ability to furnish a greater mass of humanity 
than the Confederacy could afford, for starvation 
and the shambles, men will wonder how it was that 
a people, passing for civilized and Christian, should 
have consigned Jefferson Davis to a cell, while they 
tolerated Edwin M. Stanton as a Cabinet minister. 

I have referred to these apparently extraneous 
matters, for the purpose of showing, upon what 
foundations the prodigal slanders were rested, by 
which the American people were induced to 
acquiesce in what we have already described as the 



286 REMINlSeHHijpS OF JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

•un-American system of persecution to which Mr. 
Davis has been surrendered. One by one they have 
been demolished or tacitly abandoned, and it is now 
conceded upon all sides, that the only ground upon 
which the late President of the Confederate States 
has been or can be further restrained of his liberty, 
under any color of right, is the fact of his having 
been engaged in levying war against the United 
States. The act which these latter words describe 
is treason within the language of the 3d section of 
3d article of the Federal Constitution, and upon the 
applicability of that section to the case of Mr. 
Davis, depends, of course, the right to hold and try 
him for the crime which it defines. But before pro- 
ceeding to the few observations upon that point, to 
which our space and the nature of this article con- 
fines us, we cannot avoid renewing the inquiry, why 
is it that Mr. Davis has been singled out for imputed 
treason, from the millions whom the Supreme Court 
of the United States has solemnly declared to be 
as guilty as he. ^^All persons," says Mr. Justice 
Grier, in delivering the opinion of that tribunal, in 
the Prize cases, * " residing within this territory, 
whose property may be used to increase the 
revenues of the hostile power, are liable to be treated 
as enemies, though not foreigners. They have cast 
off their allegiance and made war on the Govern- 

*2 Black, 674. 



IMPRISONMENT OF JEFFERSON DAVIS. 287 

ment and are none the less enemies because they are 
traitors." Lawyers and publicists will of course 
judge for themselves in regard to the soundness of 
the doctrine thus announced, but it conveys, at all 
events, the deliberate judgment of the highest judi- 
cial authority under the Constitution. How is it, 
then, that one man out of all these millions of 
" traitors " and " enemies " is sought to be made 
their scape-goat ? Nay, the Supreme Court have 
gone further than the language we have quoted. 
They have determined in the same cases, by the 
mouth of the same judge,* that the people of the 
South " in organizing this rebellion," " acted as 
States, (sic) claiming to be sovereign over all persons 
and property within their respective limits, and 
asserting a right to absolve their citizens from their 
allegiance to the Federal Government. Several of 
these States," adds Judge Grier, " have combined to 
form a new Confederacy, claiming to be acknowl- 
edged by the world as a sovereign State." How is 
it, then, that Mr. Davis alone is to be held as the 
representative for punishment, not only of the mil- 
lions of individual men by whom " the rebellion " 
was conducted, but also of the States whose corpor- 
ate capacity and action the Supreme Court thus 
recognizes, and of the Confederacy, to which these 
States entrusted, as their representative, the bel- 

* 2 Black, 763. 



288 EEMI^IWigpCES OF JEFFEKSON DAVIS. 

ligerent powers and resources of the sovereignty 
which they respectively asserted ? It is simply im- 
possible that any reasonable answer can be given to 
these inquiries. That Mr. Davis had anything more 
to do with originating the Southern movement than 
hundreds of other prominent and able men, cannot 
be asserted with any respect for the truth. No 
Southern member of the Senate in 1861 was more 
anxious and ready than he for a compromise and 
pacific solution of the questions which were inflam- 
ing the public mind. No man retired from the Sen- 
ate with more unfeigned ^'and sorrowful reluctance, 
or left behind him a more respectful appreciation of 
his honesty, sincerity, dignity and manhood. His 
valedictory moistened the eyes of those who were 
most hostile to his political movements and opinions, 
and produced a sensation which no man, who wit- 
nessed the scene, will ever forget. He was elevated 
to the Presidential chair of the new-formed Confed- 
eracy, not as the representative of extreme opinions 
or bitter feelings, but because of the respect in which 
his consistency, his honor, his single-heartedness, his 
courage and ability were held by the whole Southern 
people. With what perplexities and trials he had 
to struggle, yet with what earnestness and success 
he managed, above all things, to prevent the action 
of his government and the conduct of its armies 
from being controlled by the vindictive rancor which 



IMPKISONMENT OF JEFFERSON DAVIS. 289 

the circumstances rendered so natural and so difficult 
to restrain, all who knew anything of the internal 
struggles of the Confederacy can testify. The same 
history which canonizes the successful determination 
of Lamartine, at the Hotel de Ville, to prevent the 
rising republic of 1848 from lifting the red flag anew, 
which had been drenched in the blood of the peo- 
ple, will place side by side with it the moral heroism 
of Jefferson Davis, in forbidding the black flag to be 
unfurled by any of the soldiers of the Confederate 
States against the enemies who were menacing their 
homes, institutions and freedom. 

Nor was it alone in the belligerent relations of the 

Confederacy that Mr. Davis was the representative 

of the spirit of moderation. In a contest, in which 

(everything (and especially upon the weaker side) 

depended upon executive energy, concentration and 

promptness, he shrank from grasping a single power 

which was not confided to him by the Constitution. 

While the Federal Government of the United States, 

looking only to success, and regardless of the means 

, Ky which it might be assured, went trampling to the 

ight and left, over every Constitutional guaranty, 

ver individual liberty and State authority alike, 

£r. Davis persistently confined himself within the 

mits constitutionally assigned to him, determined, 

.whatever might betide, that the Confederacy 

should at least not suffer at his hands the evils of 
19 



290 REMINISCENCES OF JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

executive usurpation. There are those among the 
best friends of Mr Davis, who believe, with sadness, 
that in this he was perhaps more nice than wise, and 
that the circumstances would have justified him in 
temporarily opposing to the vigor of the despotism 
into which the Government of the United States had 
been converted by Mr. Lincoln, a corresponding 
vigor, purchased at the same cost to the Southern 
people. This, of course, resolves itself into a ques- 
tion which we shall not discuss, between regarding 
Mr. Davis as the chief of a mere revolution, or as the 
head of an organized and constitutional government 
There is another particular, too, in which the ad» 
ministration of Mr. Davis has been exposed to thq 
censure of both friends and foes, among his own\ 
constituents, which seems to render doubly heinous 
his selection as a victim from among the whole peo4 
pie whom he served. "We refer to that peculiar 
gentleness and kindness of heart, which made i1 
impossible for him to deal, in the spirit of his other- 
wise just and resolute character, with the thousand 
cases of individual and official delinquency, defect 
or misconduct which required his action. How 
much, in such a contest as the Confederate "War, de- \ 
pends upon the inflexible maintenance of discipline 
and the relentless enforcement of official obligation, 
in every branch of the public service, civil as well as 
military, the experience of both parties to the strug- 



IMPEISONMENT OF JEFFERSON DAVIS. 291 

gle has sufficiently demonstrated. Whether they 
are in the right or not, who maintain that the stern- 
ness of Mr. Davis was not equal to the demands of 
his position in that regard, it is certainly true, that 
the instincts of his nature were in constant struggle 
with the harsher requirements of duty, and that the 
influence of his personal kindness was felt, not only 
among the soldiers and people of the Confederacy, 
but whenever he was able to mitigate, as to its ene- 
mies, the dread severity of war. 

Except, then, that he was the official chief and 
representative of the Confederate Government and 
people ; that by his ability, statesmanship and mod- 
eration, and the admirable official papers which 
came from his hand, he at once gave to his cause a> 
position of honor and respect before the world and 
its rulers, and elevated the American name among 
all the nations ; that his constancy and patriotism 
shared in every sacrifice and animated every effort 
of the struggle ; that his dignity and courage gave 
consolation even to despair, and have ennobled de- 
feat and captivity — except in these, there is no rea- 
son why he should not breathe the air to-day, as 
much a freeman as any other man who lifted the 
Confederate flag or fought beneath it. It were a sad 
commentary, at the best, on civilization and Chris- 
tianity, and especially upon the vaunted influence of 
political liberty and Republican institutions, that a 



292 EEMINISC«J^S OF JEFFEKSON DAVIS. 

war of political opinion — a war not waged for the 
subversion of society or government, but in vindica- 
tion, upon both sides, of principles which they re- 
spectively assumed to be the basis of the constitu- 
tional system that had united them so long — should 
not end upon the battle-field, but should lead the 
vanquished to the dungeon and the scaffold. To 
have settled by brute force a question of constitu- 
tional right and self-government would seem re- 
proach enough, in itself, to the citizens of a Repub- 
lic which was founded on consent, and whose very 
origin made sacred and indefeasible the right of 
mankind to abrogate old governments and set up new. 
But that the victors in such a strife, not content 
with accepting their own superiority in numbers 
and material resources as conclusive upon a matter 
of reason and right, should select from the millions 
of their fellow-citizens who have laid down their 
arms, the most conspicuous and honored of their 
public servants, to atone by his personal sufferings 
for the sinful opinions of his people, would seem 
like closing the volume of human progress, and dis- 
pelling forever the dreams of the enthusiasts who 
believe that freedom and self-government improve 
and enlighten men. With what humiliation do we 
turn from such a picture to the noble spectacle of 
the Provisional Government of the French Republic 
of 1848, on the immortal occasion to which we 



IMPRISONMENT OF JEFFERSON DAVIS. 293 

have alluded. What a lesson in the grand words of 
Lamartine, when he proclaimed to his people in the 
first flush of their triumph, that it became them to 
make it " a victory and not a vengeance ! " What 
an example in the abolition of the death-penalty for 
political offences, as the first act of a government 
yet struggling with the infuriated passions of those 
who had created it. upon the arena still slippery 
with their own and their brothers' blood ! 

But assuming that all these teachings and exam- 
ples, and all the better instincts of men and nations 
are to be as naught, and that the South is to suffer, 
in the person of Mr. Davis, for the crime of its 
treason— if treason it were — let us consider for a 
moment how such a determination gets rid of the 
difficulty, which Mr. Burke found so insurmounta- 
ble, of framing an indictment against a people. It 
may be premised, we suppose, without contradiction, 
that the idea of settling the question of the right of 
secession, by a judicial decision in the premises, is a 
simple and empty pretext. No one imagines that 
the Supreme Court would dare to pronounce in favor 
of that right, if the opinion of every judge on the 
bench was conscientiously and deliberately upon that 
side. The people of the North would not tolerate 
such a decision, nor abide by it if it were given, for, 
as we have said, the question is claimed, upon all 
hands, to have been settled forever by the result of 



294 E-EMINISCB^tg^ OF JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

the war. Nay, the Supreme Court itself, in 1862, in 
the Prize cases,* after using the language which we 
have quoted above, as to the assumption of the 
seceding States to absolve their citizens from alle- 
giance to the Federal Government and form a new 
Confederacy, declares in express terms that " their 
right to do so is now being decided by wager of bat- 
tle." The wager has long since been won, and the 
Supreme Court, with the rest of the winners, has 
possession of the bloody stakes. To imagine that 
the judges of that tribunal could now hold otherwise 
than that the " right " in dispute had been " de- 
cided," would be sheer fatuity. The question is no 
longer open. The conclusion is already foregone. 
The trial, conviction and execution of every sur- 
viving soldier of the Confederate armies would not 
strengthen it a jot or a tittle. Their universal ac- 
quittal, with Mr. Davis at their head, would not 
shake it, for an instant, in the popular mind and 
determination of the North. To moot the question 
before the courts is therefore but to enact a judicial 
farce — none the less a farce because death is hid 
under the motley. Still, if the form of a hearing 
is to be gone through, the form of a defence is pre- 
supposed as part of the drama, and it becomes those 
who think that bayonets are not pure reason, to sug- 
gest what reason they have to the contrary. 

♦2 Black, 673. 



IMPEISONMENT OF JEFFEKSON DAVIS. 295 

The Supreme Court, as we have shown, has set- 
tled the question of both fact and law, that the 
Southern States " acted as States " in " organizing the 
rebellion." This was not merely the recital of a 
historical incident by the Court, but was. absolutely 
necessary as an element in the maintenance of the 
doctrine which the Prize cases established. It was 
contended by the counsel of some of the claimants, 
citizens of Virginia, that they were not alleged or 
proven to be " traitors : " that insurrection was the 
crime of individuals and that the relation of citizens 
to the Government of the United States was purely 
an individual one ; that the ordinances of secession, 
being unconstitutional and invalid, could not sever 
the allegiance of the citizen from the United States, 
or make him an enemy, and expose his property to 
capture and confiscation, if he was not, by his own 
individual act, in rebellion or hostility. There was 
but one possible escape, in the interest of the Gov- 
ernment, from this argument, and that was, to 
declare that the States went out " as States," in their 
corporate capacity, and that such State action, of 
itself, and without their personal participation, made 
every man, woman and child within the State limits 
an " enemy," in law, whether friend or enemy in 
fact. How a legal "nullity" could work such a 
legal result, is among the unexplained mysteries of 
belligerent jurisprudence — but still it was so de- 



296 REMINISCE!*^ OF JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

cided, and the fact, legal and actual, that the States 
corporately, and not the individuals who composed 
them, " organized the rebellion," and formed the new 
Confederacy, was not only admitted, but set up, 
affirmatively, by the counsel, of the United States, 
and by the court itself, as part of the case of this 
Government. Carried honestly out to its legitimate 
consequences, under the law of nations, this deci- 
sion disposes of the whole " treason " pretence. If 
an act of war, committed by a State, makes its citi- 
zens enemies, ipso facto, without reference to any 
conduct of their own, it must follow, of logical 
necessity, that all belligerent acts, done by the citi- 
zen, are the acts of the State and not of the individ- 
ual, and that they entail on the latter only the 
responsibility which attaches to enemies in arms, 
flagrante hello, and ceases when the war is over. 
They are, in the language of Burke, " offences of 
war," which are " obliterated by peace." 

But, be this as it may, it is, at all events, impos- 
sible to dispute one logical result of the decision in 
question, viz. ; that if State action and authority 
can exonerate the individual citizen who has obeyed 
them, from the crime of treason to the United 
States in the act of such obedience, neither Mr. 
Davis nor any other Southern citizen or soldier can 
lawfully be charged with that offence. To those 
who recognize the broad Southern doctrine of the 



IMPRISONMENT OF JEFFERSON DAVIS. 297 

right of secession, as expounded and defended by 
Dr. Bledsoe in a remarkable work, entitled, " Is 
Davis a Traitor ? " the case, of course, presents no 
difficulty in this aspect. The exercise of a right 
cannot involve a crime, and upon that theory the 
several State ordinances dissolved, at once, the rela- 
tion and responsibility of the citizen to the general 
Government. Under the modified doctrine, main- 
tained with so much ability by Mr. Bayard, of Dela- 
ware, the case is equally clear — for assuming, with 
him, the right of any of the States to withdraw 
from the constitutional compact, as sovereigns, 
whenever in their judgment its terms are infringed, 
coupled with the equal right of the other States to 
make war on those seceding, if they deem the seces- 
sion to be causeless — it is still a question of war be- 
tween sovereigns, involving belligerent rights and 
their consequences, but merging all responsibility of 
the individual citizen on either side. Nor is it easy 
to perceive how a different practical result can be 
arrived at under the doctrine of Mr. Buchanan's 
message to the Congress of Deceraber, 1860. That 
message, although since denounced with unexam- 
pled bitterness, undoubtedly represented at the 
time the opinion of nearly all the leaders of the 
Democratic party North, who were not secessionists 
avowed, and on the faith of it they pledged them- 
selves, as every one remembers, to interpose their 



298 EEMINISCE»€IJi^OF JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

bodies, in the most heroic manner, between the 
coercionists on their own soil and their cherished 
brethren of the South. That they apostatized from 
their convictions and falsified their pledges as never 
a great party was known to do before ; that they 
not only did not attempt to resist the advancing 
armies of abolitionism and coercion, but applied, in 
crowds, at once, for captaincies, colonelcies, major- 
generalships and particularly paymasterships, as 
they had been wont to rush for places in the post- 
offices and the custom-houses, in the bygone and 
beloved days of "rotation" and "the spoils," is 
well known to all who are acquainted with the an- 
nals of political cowardice, bad faith and prostitu- 
tion. But, as we have said, before the Dickinsons, 
the Bancrofts, the Butlers, and such like had been 
taught the inestimable value (in currency) of " the 
life of the nation," they agreed with Mr. Buchanan, 
that even if there was no constitutional right to se- 
cede, there was no constitutional right to coerce a 
State seceding. This being admitted, and the 
States having resisted, " as States," the exercise of 
an unconstitutional power, it would seem necessarily 
to follow, that their authority in such resistance was 
a legal protection and security to their citizens — un- 
less it can be shown that a State can repel an 
armed assault upon its rights, without the aid of its 
people, and that they commit a crime in aiding it to 



IMPRISONMENT OF JEFFERSON DAVIS. 299 

resist a forcible breach of the Constitution. It was 
ui^on this, among other grounds, that the Legisla- 
ture of Maryland, in 1861, asserted the right of the 
State, if she saw fit, to prevent the passage of Fed- 
eral troops across her soil, on their march to coerce 
and invade the South. The right to coerce being 
denied, under the Constitution, it was assumed to 
follow, that the assemblage and movement of troops 
for the purpose of coercion was a palpable violation of 
the Constitution, in furtherance of which the Fed- 
eral Government could not claim the right of tran- 
sit, which belonged to it only in aid and pursuance 
of its constitutional functions and powers. 

And this leads to a view of the immediate ques- 
tion under discussion, which we have never seen pre- 
sented, although it appears to be obvious, and would 
certainly seem to dispose of the charge of treason, 
so far as concerns Mr. Davis and all others in like 
case with him. It has the great advantage, too, of 
being connected, in no way, with the exciting ques- 
tions of secession and coercion, and of involving no 
decision as to the right or wrong of the action which 
the seceding States deemed themselves justified in 
adopting. 

Whatever may be said as to State rights and 
State sovereignty, in the Southern or Democratic 
sense of those terms, no one entitled to be heard 
will deny, we presume, that the States are, in some 



300 KEMINISCEJWW^F JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

respects, sovereign, and have rights, of some sort, 
attached to their sovereignty. That the rights they 
thus possess are as incapable of violation, without a 
violation of the Constitution, and as fully entitled to 
protection and vindication, as the rights delegated 
to the general Government, is of course equally in- 
disputable. Let it be assumed, for the sake of the 
argument, that some clear and conceded constitu- 
tional right of a State, or of all the States, is in- 
vaded or about to be invaded by the Federal power 
— that some unquestionable attribute of State sov- 
ereignty is about to be assailed, in a manner which 
will be incontestably in derogation of the Constitu- 
tion. In many of such cases, a judicial solution of 
the difficulty may be practicable. There are others, 
of course — and especially when the scheme of usurpa- 
tion is instant and forcible — in which delay puts an 
end to the possibility of defence or remedy. As- 
sume, for instance, that a usurping President, under 
the direction of a usurping Congress or despising 
the remonstrances of a faithful one, is about to over- 
throw a State Government, by force of arms, and 
appropriate its territory to his own or the Federal 
uses, in acknowledged violation and contempt of the 
fundamental law. Let it be a case in which liberty 
is sought to be crushed as well as right. Can there 
be any dispute as to the duty and right of the State 
Government, to resist such an aggression, by force if 



IMPRISONMENT OF JEFFEESON DAVIS. 301 

it can — to marshal its troops, and defend its soil and 
the freedom of its people, by all the means within 
its reach ? Can the right and duty of the sister 
States to join in such resistance be denied ? And 
by right and duty, we mean, not in a revolutionary 
nor a merely moral sense, but under the Constitu- 
tion, in order to resist its overthrow and maintain 
its inviolability ? Surely none but the most besot- 
ted of consolidationists can say nay to these in- 
quiries. In the twenty-eighth number of the Feder- 
alist, General Hamilton himself lays it down as " an 
axiom in our political system, that the State Govern- 
ments, within all possible contingencies, afford com- 
plete security against invasions of the public liberty 
by the national authority. . . . Possessing all the 
organs of civil power and the confidence of the 
people, they can at once adopt a regular plan of op- 
position, in which they can combine all the resources 
ot the community. They can readily communicate 
with each other, in the different States, and unite 
their common forces for the protection of their com- 
mon liberty." Mr. Madison expands the same idea 
over the whole of the forty-sixth ' number, in which 
he endeavors to allay all apprehensions of danger 
from the Federal power, by showing that " its 
schemes of usurpation will be readily defeated by 
the State Governments, which will be supported by 
the people." Indeed, he denounces with indigna- 



302 KEMINISCE!f«ii^OF JEFFEESON DAVIS. 

lion those who " insult the free and gallant citizens 
of America " by the suspicion that they would hesi- 
tate about thus defending their liberties. Assum- 
ing, then, that there are cases, few or many, in 
which the Federal Government may trench, with 
violence, upon the acknowledged rights and sover- 
eignty of the States, and that the States have the 
right to resist its aggressions by force — which they 
must have, unless we are slaves — who is to deter- 
mine when and whether such an occasion has arisen ? 
Not the Federal Government, of course, for that 
would reduce the right of resistance to an absurdity. 
The Supreme Court, in the well-known case of Mar- 
tin vs. Mott,* involving the exercise of the military 
powers of the Federal Executive in certain contin- 
gencies of invasion or insurrection, determined, that 
from the nature of the powers and the objects to be 
accomplished, the officer entrusted with the authority 
is the sole and exclusive judge whether the exigency 
has arisen. In the parallel case of Luther vs. Bor- 
den f the court has added " that the ordinary pro- 
ceedings in courts of justice would be utterly unfit 
for the crisis." By inevitable parity of reason, the 
States, in the cases I have assumed, and in a like 
crisis, must be the judges of their exigency also, 
and so being, the exercise of their judgment and 
their commands to their citizens, in that exercise, 

* 12 Wheaton, 19. f 7 How. 44. 



IMPRISONMENT OF JEFFERSON DAVIS. 303 

must be a shield to the citizens who obey. In the 
case of Mitchell vs. Harmony * the Supreme Court 
decided, that where a superior has a lawful discre- 
tion and exercises it, the inferior whom he com- 
mands is justified in his obedience, and cannot be 
held responsible, though a wrong to third parties 
may result from it, and though the superior " may 
have abused his power, or acted through improper 
motives." This doctrine, which is founded on rea- 
son as well as authority, seems to place the conclu- 
sion above controversy, that where one of the 
States of the Union, in the exercise of its undoubted 
right to resist a Federal usurpation, sees fit to de- 
termine that a case for such resistance has arisen, 
the citizen who acts under the State authority, and 
is punishable under its laws if he refuses so to act, 
is not responsible to the Federal tribunals, though 
the State may have exercised its discretion un- 
wisely, or prematurely, or even wrongfully, in the 
premises. Whether the State has "abused its 
power, or acted through improper motives," is a 
matter for the State and the Union to settle, but the 
citizen is shielded, let it be settled as it may. 

I have suggested these points (from among the 
many which present themselves) with the necessary 
brevity, and rather for the mere sake of truth and 
right, than from any hope that such things will be 

* 13 Howard, 137. 



304 KEMflW^NCES OF JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

heeded. When a judge of the highest tribunal of 
the United States, like Mr. Justice Grier, in deliver- 
ing its opinion upon the gravest case ever presented 
to its consideration, is so lost to the decencies of his 
position as to sneer at an objection to Executive 
action, on the ground of its unconstitutionality, and 
to print the word "unconstitutional!!!'' in italics 
and with three notes of admiration, in order to make 
his contempt typographically conspicuous,* it is, we 
fear, but wasted time, to appeal to any principle of 
the Constitution, however solemn, which stands 
between fanaticism or vindictiveness and the victim 
for whom they rage. 

But were Mr. Davis ever so much the " traitor " 
that the Holts and Butlers call him, he would still 
have some rights — the right to a speedy and impar- 
tial trial under the provisions of the Constitution 
which he is accused of having violated — the right to 
be bailed, if the Government declines to try him. 
Need we quote anew the language of the fifth and 
sixth Amendments to the Constitution, unhappily 
too well remembered through the land, from the con- 
tempt with which the usurpations of the war went 
trampling daily over them ? When the sixth article 
declares that in " all criminal prosecutions, the ac- 
cused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and impartial 
trial," does it mean that he shall be mocked, for 

* 2 Black, 663. 



IMPRISONMENT OF JEFFERSON DAVIS. 305 

eighteen weary months of insolent and harassing 
outrage and delay, by every subterfuge that official 
prevarication can devise or party clamor can encour- 
age ? Does it mean that he shall be bandied from 
military commissions to judges and grand juries ; 
that Underwoods and Chandlers and Chases shall 
hold him prisoner at their will, and try him or not, 
as their caprice or malice may suggest? Does it 
signify that Republican Conventions shall determine 
upon the disposition to be made of him, and that 
Radical orators shall insist on his being held, that 
they may make a standing clap-trap of his life and 
his gibbet ? Does it mean that the civil authorities 
are not to try him, because the military authorities 
have him in custody, and are not to deliver 
him from that custody on habeas corpus, lest they 
should then have to try him ? Does the Constitu- 
tion of the United States intend that the President 
shall have the power to hand the prisoner over to 
the civil authority — in other words, to pass him 
from his own military hand to his civil hand — and 
yet not have the power to see that the civil author- 
ity, of which he is the head, discharges its duty or 
releases its prisoner ? Time was, when to ask these 
questions were an insult. It is, now, perhaps only to 
provoke an official smile at the weakness which still 
talks about the Constitution ! 

We read in the very highest English authority 
20 



306 REMINISCE^T^M^OF JEFFEKSON DAVIS. 

upon criminal law and practice * that " The princi- 
pal ground for bailing, upon habeas corpus, and in- 
deed the evil the writ was intended to remedy, is 
the neglect of the accuser to prosecute in due time. 
Even in case of high treason, where the party has 
been committed upon the warrant of the Secretary of 
State, after a year has elapsed ivithout his prosecution, 
the court will discharge him, upon adequate security 
being given for his appearance ^ As early as the 
close of the Revolution of 1776, Mr. Henry Laurens, 
then a prisoner in the Tower, was able to satisfy one 
of the British peers who visited him, that the writ of 
habeas corpus was already more speedily and thorough- 
ly remedial in the colonies than in the mother country. 
And yet there are those who think that we have im- 
proved on the institutions of that generation and the 
wisdom and patriotism of the men who made them. 

There is but one more topic which the imprison- 
ment of Mr. Davis suggests, and upon that I touch 
with the reluctance which comes from utter disgust 
and shame. We refer, of course, to the personal in- 
dignities which have attended it — indignities at 
which the gorge of every decent, dispassionate man 
in the wide world must rise, and the obloquy of 
which must rest more heavily forever on the nation 
which has tolerated them, than even on the ruffians 
in office, who had the baseness to direct their perpe- 

*1 Chitty's Criminal Law, 131. 



IMPRISONMENT OF JEFFEESON DAVIS. 307 

tration. There is something in the very idea of an 
old and honored citizen — once a Cabinet officer of 
the nation, and unsurpassed in the ability with 
which his duties were discharged — a man of elo- 
quence and thought — a Senator and statesman — a 
soldier whose body is scarred with honorable wounds 
sujBfered in the service of his country — a pure and 
upright public servant, whose lips were never sullied 
by falsehood and whose hands are clean of corrup- 
tion — there is something, I say, in the mere idea 
that such a man — wasted by disease and physically 
broken by disaster — should be manacled and fet- 
tered, with barbarous violence, in a fortress of this 
Republic — which must call the blush to every 
American cheek that conscious disgrace can redden. 
But even shame must give way to indignation and 
scorn, when it is remembered that the infamy was 
perpetrated by the order of the very department 
over which the victim once presided with so much 
usefulness and honor; that it was commanded in 
utter wantonness, merely to lacerate and sting a 
sensitive, proud spirit, and that a general of the 
armies of the Union was the gratified instrument of 
its infliction. It recalls the last days of the Roman 
Republic, when the tongue of a Cicero, captive and 
murdered, was pierced by the spiteful bodkin of aC 
strumpet. And even this outrage of the manacles 
apart — the story of daily and nightly torments, and 



308 BEMINISCL?mii%OF JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

hourly petty persecutions — of needless hardships 
and discomforts, and gratuitous insults — has some- 
thing in it which makes belief almost impossible, 
without a contempt for our race. Then, too, the 
mean espionage, and paltry overlooking — the swarm 
of impertinent men and women let loose by his 
jailor on his feeble walks and domestic privacy — ^the 
sick man driven to his cell by the insufferable peer- 
ing of rude and vulgar eyes — what a spectafjle these 
things present of the magnanimity of a great na^ 
tion ! And when at last the prisoner is allowed the 
common decencies of a country jail and is permitted 
to share the society of his wife and children, what a 
clamor over the land it causes — some cursing the 
indulgence — some magnifying the generosity of the 
Government ! The Associated Press anticipates the 
wishes of the War Department and the taste of its 
constituents, by exaggerating the "luxuries" of 
"Jeffl's" new and commodious quarters, and by 
telling how "grateful" he is for the "clemency" 
which has been extended him. The readers of its 
despatches — ninety out of an hundred of them — are 
quite sure that it is indeed a case for gratitude, and 
that the "traitor" ought to bless his stars that, 
after having committed the awful crime of enter- 
taining and fighting for the constitutional opinions 
of himself and his fathers, he was not drawn and 
quartered for it, in Faneuil Hall, after morning 
gj^ Pfayer, on Lord's day following his arrest. 



